Beyond Fundamentals

It appears that those who initially predicted the days of $100 barrels of oil may soon be able to say “told you so.” Back in April 2005, we wrote a Weekly Opinion entitled “$100+ Per Barrel Crude: April Fool?” This Opinion focused on a report wherein Goldman Sachs analysts predicted price levels of such magnitude. In the past few weeks the price of crude broke into the $80 per barrel price range, above where it had generally remained for most of the second quarter, before pushing its way toward $90 per barrel. The chart below shows the price for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) on a year-on-year comparison with 2006.