Money Manager David Kotok: Plunging Oil Could Fall to $15

Tumbling Oil Prices have hit six-year lows, and Cumberland Advisors' David Kotok predicts that could plunge even lower.

"We could go back to $15 or $20, this is a downward slope, we don't know a bottom," the influential money manager told Bloomberg TV. A year ago, oil was about $100.

U.S. oil prices hit their lowest in almost six and a half years on Wednesday after U.S. data showed an unexpected rise in crude stockpiles.

U.S. crude oil futures, also known as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), were down $1.20 at $41.42 a barrel by 1450 GMT, after touching a low of $41.18. The front-month, September, U.S. crude oil contract is due to expire on Thursday. North Sea Brent crude was down 90 cents at $47.91 a barrel.

Oil has tumbled more than 30 percent since this year’s peak close in June amid signs that producers are maintaining output even after a surplus pushed prices into a bear market.

A further decline to $15 a barrel would be huge. Oil hasn't traded that low since early 1999, when gasoline at the pump was selling for under $1 a gallon, CNNMoney reported.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has pumped above its 30 million-barrel-a-day quota for more than a year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Angola plans to ship 1.83 million barrels a day in October, the most since November 2011, according to a preliminary loading program obtained by Bloomberg. That compares with 1.77 million barrels a day from Africa’s second-largest crude producer in September.

Meanwhile, Iraq must increase oil output to meet the needs of its growing population and provide services, Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi said on his website. The nation’s production climbed to a record 4.18 million barrels a day in July, according to the International Energy Agency.

Via: Newsmax

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Your Money in Pictures: The Top 5 Charts of 2013

As part of our countdown to the new year, here are Heritage’s top five must-see charts of 2013.

5. What If a Typical Family Spent Money Like the Federal Government?
While middle-class families are still plagued by a sluggish recovery in the Obama economy, this is what their finances would look like if they spent money like the government—and it’s not a pretty picture. Most families understand that it is unwise to constantly spend excessive amounts compared to what they take in, but the government continues its shopping spree on the taxpayer credit card with seemingly no regard to the stack of bills that has already piled up.

Via: The Foundry

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[VIDEO] 'Healthy Ho's Party': ObamaCare Registration Drive For Prostitutes

Just when you thought you've seen everything, along comes what's called a "Healthy Ho's Party."

As reported by CNN Money, this is what a "sex worker" in San Francisco called her effort to register others in her "profession" in ObamaCare (video follows with commentary):

Organized by "Siouxsie Q," a Bay Area sex worker, the event was meant to encourage other sex workers to enroll in the new insurance exchanges. It was a rousing success: Nearly 40 men and women attended and almost all of them filed enrollment paperwork.

In the all-cash, off-the-books sex industry, workers can be particularly high risk and insurance is often out of reach. Many sex workers -- a broad term that can refer to a number of services, including sexual massage, prostitution, and escort and dominatrix work -- consider themselves self-employed entrepreneurs who can't afford to purchase healthcare. But that could all change with the Affordable Care Act. [...]

Volunteers from Siouxsie's weekly podcast, The WhoreCast, staffed the event. "Jolene," another sex worker who had already enrolled through the California exchange, was also on hand to talk users through the process. A key detail for the crowd: Enrollment doesn't require users to report their employment.

Via: Newsbusters

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New $100 bills stolen en route to Fed facility

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Unknown thieves stole a "large amount" of newly-designed $100 bills bound for a Federal Reserve facility in New Jersey on Thursday, the FBI said.

Frank Burton, Jr., spokesman for the FBI's Philadelphia division, said the theft occurred at some point between when the shipment of bills landed at the Philadelphia airport on a commercial flight from Dallas at 10:20 Thursday morning, and when the shipment reached its New Jersey destination around 2:00 p.m., when the courier service transporting the bills reported some missing.

Via:CNN Money

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