World oil markets quietly breached an important barrier as they crashed nearly 30 percent to below $30 a barrel in the opening weeks of 2016, crossing the fuzzy line separating a rational response to fundamentals from an irrational fear where the only way forward is down, down, down. Animal spirits have taken over the futures markets of New York and London, with momentum-driven algorithmic traders and big hedge funds driving oil prices far beyond the point that even once-bearish analysts say is justified – at least in the medium-term – by supply and demand. That marks a change from most of the past 18 months, when oil’s long descent from $100 a barrel was broadly viewed as an often painful, sometimes lumpy adjustment to a fundamentally “new normal” in which OPEC would […]