In mid-2008, crude oil shocked energy markets as it reached an all-time high of $147/barrel (Bbl.) on the New York Mercantile Exchange. (See Figure 0 below.) Within four months, prices had sunk to $50 per barrel. Then, again in 2014, prices hit a high of about $100/Bbl in June only to fall to under $50/Bbl by December. In April 2020, crude oil futures price dropped to about - $40/bbl for the first time in history. How could these happen, and what were the factors causing these levels of price volatility? We will be exploring these questions in Lesson 2.
At the successful completion of this lesson, students should be able to:
This lesson will take us one week to complete. The following items will be due Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.
If you have any questions, please post them to our General Course Questions discussion forum (not email), located under Modules in Canvas. The TA and I will check that discussion forum daily to respond. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help out a classmate.