I realize this may seem trivial to the people on the Gulf Coast, who are facing what possibly is the worst hurricane to come down the pike in a long time, but I really got stirred up when I read this news. Normally, the New York Mercantile Exchange opens at 6:00 PM for trading on Sunday, but with Hurricane Gustav bearing down on the Gulf Coast, they deemed it necessary to open early. From ADVFN News:

New York, Aug 30 (Reuters) – The New York Mercantile Exchange will open it’s electronic trading platform earlier than normal on Sunday to facilitate energy futures trading before Hurricane Gustav makes landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast, the exchange said in a press release.

Trading in NYMEX energy futures will open at 2:30 pm eastern time (1830 GMT) on the CME Globex electronic platform. NYMEX normally begins trading at 6 pm (2200 GMT) on Sundays.

I have to wonder why they have to open early, just because Hurricane Gustav is on it’s way. Do they think they need that extra 3.5 hours to make sure they don’t miss any extra spikes in the price of oil? During Thursday and Friday of last week, the price of gasoline had already jumped twenty cents, before Gustav was even close. No telling what it will be before this is all said and done. Just one more example of why futures trading and speculation on energy sources should be outlawed.

Tags: Crude Oil, Futures, Hurricane Gustav, New York Mercantile Exchange, Oil Prices, Speculation

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 31st, 2008 at 6:33 pm and is filed under News/Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.