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Interesting ideas in this thread. Is it my imagination or didn't the oil companies have the most profitable years ever over the past couple of years? How does that tie in with such low "profits" unless mainstream media misreported the numbers?
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I think sammy was talking about profit margin, ie, the profit margin shareholders want is 10%. You can still have low profit margin but big profit by...selling more.
So, no, it isn't your imagination, oil companies did report record profits but likely didn't have a 10 or 15% profit margin. IIRC, it was posted in some other long forgotten oil thread that MSFT had a higher profit margin than XOM, even though XOM posted a bigger profit.
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Bull*****. We went from paying $2 bucks a gallon to over $3.50 a gallon and back to $2.5 a gallon in less than a year and every oil company reported their highest profits ever simply because of speculation about hurricanes by a bunch of hedge fund managers?
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I think you're underestimating the power that hedge funds, especially lots of hedge funds all working the same angle, can have. Dot-com boom? Dot-com bust? In 1999 a hurricane in Japan put Barings Bank out of business (due to their market position via Nick Leeson). Hedge funds have a LOT of influence.