Crude oil prices have been more volatile this year than at any time since the financial crisis of 2008/09 and before that 1991, according to standard measures of price variability. Some of the increase in volatility is more apparent than real, however, as every $1 per barrel move translates into a larger shift in percentage terms now that prices have halved from $100 per barrel to less than $50. The chief of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) warned a conference last week the oil market had already experienced 35 “flash events” since the start of the year. CFTC Chairman Timothy Massad defined flash events as occasions on which prices moved by at least 200 basis points within an hour but returned to within 75 basis points of the starting […]