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The recent market conditions are more a consequence of changes in supply than in demand.

I heard someone refer to something called the "Economist effect", where an article in the Economist about a particular trend signals its end.

Sure enough: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-30/opec-said...

e: word order

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the "Economist effect"

It's real. Someone on HN mentioned them as a contra-indicator during a previous discussion. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12516078

My supporting argument to him was that The Economist argued in 1999 that $10 oil was too expensive and that it could be headed to $5. So of course oil rose to $140 over the next decade! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12517258

You can replace that with any newspaper reports. The oil price follows in part a pork cycle, so a period of falling prices will likely lead to a sharp reverse at some point (and vice versa). Once you have enough data supporting the lower price regime, oil will likely spike again.

The interesting question is if it's gonna be different this time. Many argue that with shale production supply will be much more elastic, but it could also just be a false lead.

Pork cycle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_cycle

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