Intellectual Honesty and Oil Prices

During the GOP presidential debate Saturday night, moderator Charlie Gibson — anchor of ABC’s World News Tonight - asked the candidates whether “intellectual honesty” demanded that they forthrightly tell the American people that oil prices were only going to get higher? None of the candidates really answered the question, so allow me to do so.


No.


Oil prices might indeed be on a rocket ship upwards for as far as the eye can see, but market actors don’t think so. At the New York Mercantile Exchange, oil for delivery from next month through December 2016 is showing a downward price trend. In short, the people with the most money on the line — who will live and die (economically speaking) by these assessments — aren’t buying Gibson’s assertion about the future.


More evidence can be found the behavior of oil inventory holders. At present, oil inventories are being released to the market –hardly what one would expect if inventory holders thought that oil prices will continue their long march upward.


Of course, market actors could be wrong. Energy forecasts have such a poor track record that one should probably resist making any concrete predictions about the future. So while Charles Gibson might well be right that oil prices are only going to go higher, it is not “intellectually dishonest” to suggest that might not be the case.