Some say no. They say unlike the tech and real estate bubbles, there’s no overabundance of supply. Others say these high prices are not sustainable.

Oil prices have doubled in the past 12 months, surging nearly $8 a barrel in the past four days alone.

Big investment funds are putting money into oil futures as if Saudi Arabia’s spigots will run dry tomorrow. At the same time, the supply of oil and the demand for it hasn’t changed much in the last year.

So it raises the question: Is $135 oil nothing more than one big bubble? Some say no. They say unlike the tech and real estate bubbles, there’s no overabundance of supply. Others say these high prices are not sustainable.

The answer depends on who you ask.

A bubble is where supply overwhelms demand, pointing to previous bubbles – like the tech bubble in the late 1990s where companies with zero earnings issued massive amounts of stock, and the real estate market a decade later where home builders went on a frenzy, overshooting the number of homes the market could absorb.

“But unless I’m missing something here, I don’t see any massive increase in the supply of oil”.

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