RE:Where is oil headed? Some thoughts...After reading your post my friend, a few thoughts came into my head.
My overwhelming thought/reaction harkened back to the late 1970s. I was chosen to be a member of a Committee advising Cabinet Ministers on the economy. The Committee was chaired by Ed Clark who at the time was a senior official in the Federal Finance Department (yes this is the same Ed Clark who went on to be the Chair of TD Canada Trust). Ed and his team had put together a very rosy picture of the outlook for the Canadian Economy out to the mid 1980s. At the time, I was very concerned that they did not see the storm clouds on the horizion and were going to give Cabinet a planning document that would lead to bad policy decisions. During one meeting, I looked at Ed and said that as far as I was concerned he was "whistling past the graveyard" in terms of what he and his team had put together. To make a long story short, I was the "odd man out" and they ignored my views (no sour grapes here) but we all know what happened a couple of years later at the beginning of the 80s.
While I agree that the ducks might lined up for a short term swing in oil prices; perhaps to the 85$ number I talked about last year when oil was over a hundred but over the long run for long term investors I will repeat what I have said before - there are better opportunities elsewhere over the long run.
I will play the shorter term swings in oil but my long term money is elsewhere.