Leo Melamed, chairman emeritus of CME Group, has criticised regulatory efforts to restrain speculative trading in oil, blamed by many for the soaring price of the commodity witnessed in 2008.
“Speculation, such as occurs on the futures markets, can only effect prices in a temporary fashion, for a day or two, and then only on the margin. There are speculators who believe oil prices are going up and who buy futures contracts. An equal number of speculators believe that prices will fall and they sell. The idea of blaming those who anticipate that prices will rise for the subsequent time...