Recent oil prices vs. oil companies et al

Check out the price of oil vs. various oil companies over time, and you'll see something interesting (kind of).

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6761/1812/1600/June2006.gif

You'll see that the oil companies generally track oil rises and falls quite closely. Except for the last four months.

In recent months, you'll see that oil prices fell around 20%, but in those same months we've seen a definite rise in oil companies, probably 10-15%. This is basically unheard of.

What might cause this maddness? One might conjecture that long-term investors have bought into Peak Oil. One might also conjecture that it's easier to impact/manipulate the futures market than it is the equities market. One might also also conjecture that everyone knows that oil is going up, but can't say exactly when.

But that's all conjecture. Go buy USO.