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If Barrack Obama wins the presidency, the price of oil could fall by $40 per barrel. The financial markets will discount the possibility before hand, at least partially. There are three ways in which this could happen:
1) As was the case during the Clinton administration, Obama might be more inclined to intervene in the foreign exchange market to support the value of the dollar. The U.S. has not intervened in the FX market since Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin did so in September 2000 when the Treasury sought to support the Euro, then costing about 80 cents per dollar (yes, the cost has almost doubled since then). Intervention or the threat of intervention could shave $20 off the price, based on the divergence in price between oil quoted in dollars versus that of other currencies.
2) Obama will speak in a more concilatory tone toward nations in the Middle East. If he does, some of the risk premium would likely be extracted from the oil price.
3) Energy conservation and investment in energy infrastructure are likely to increase if Obama wins, as it will be part of his mandate. Announcements of a nationwide effort to both decrease consumption and increase the supply of energy would have an announcement effect on the energy markets, lowering energy prices and burning speculators.
Points 2 and 3 are probably the most bankable ideas, but the mere threat of point 1 is still enough to impact the markets.
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Tony Crescenzi is the Chief Bond Market Strategist at Miller Tabak + Co., LLC where he advises many of the nation's top institutional investors on issues related to the bond market, the economy and other macro-related issues. Crescenzi makes regular appearances on financial television stations such as CNBC and Bloomberg, and is frequently quoted across the news media. He is also the co-author of the just-revised "The Money Market" and "The Strategic Bond Investor."
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes