Ask HN: Why Oil prices are going down?

Three things influence the price of oil, supplies, geopolitical tension/policy, demand. Most recently having Iran able to sell oil again has increased supply (downward pressure), Saudia Arabia has been under increasing political tension (tends to cause oil prices to go up), and programs to curb greenhouse emissions and vehicle mileage standards have pushed down demand.

/disclosure - I work at IBM and know these guys ...

While this is just standard "what's going on in the world" sort of stuff, if you want to put a different tech spin on it you can use the AlchemyNews API from IBM Watson and use it to highlight stories related to news producers, regions, or changes in demand. That will give you a more comprehensive sense of what is going on in the market.

I don't really track this but think I heard that OPEC was threatened by the amount of fracking-based oil that was starting to reach the market and decided to put a major squeeze on the producers of that source of oil. I'm not sure if it is working.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/low-oil-prices-threatening-frack...

One interesting fact is that gasoline price in Algeria was increased. It has always been subsidised (20 cents/liter or something). Now diesel/gasoline, etc are almost double by Government decision.