Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Trump Got it Wrong


Yesterday at his coronavirus presser, Trump was asked about the price of oil going negative. Trump indicated that the was due to a “short squeeze” for the April-delivery future contracts on light-sweet Texas crude oil. Hold on pilgrim! A short squeeze occurs when short sellers have to scramble to buy, in this case oil, to cover what they previously sold ... and the price therefore soars.

In this case the price plummeted to as much as a negative $37 per barrel. So it was the short sellers who had the whip hand. They required other sellers to pay them $37 to take a barrel of oil off their hands. So the short sellers were the squeezers ... not the squeezed.

Is this innocent mistake another Trump lie?

6 comments:

ChillFin said...

IMHO not a lie but like many of his comments, he just simply doesn’t understand. I don’t understand how commodity or a financial instrument can go below zero either. But Trump steps up to often “pull a Cliff Claven”.

George W. Potts said...

But CNN, MSNBC, NYT, etc. never get it wrong (on purpose)?

DEN said...

Chill, that's a great observation. Cliff Claven: The guy you want in charge 'cause he's wicked smaht.

George W. Potts said...

And all our previous genius presidents allowed China to eat our lunch ...

Anonymous said...

Of course, it's Trump's fault for not majoring in epidemiology. With Drs. Biden, Pelosi and Schummer taking over the White House, we'll all be safe again.

ChillFin said...

Oil went below $0 because there is nowhere to store any additional oil. Maybe you could dig a big hole in the ground for it. But wait!