The Economist did a big feature on petrodollars.   Breaking views and a host of financial columnists have hinted that Hank Paulson should have paid a visit to Riyahd as well as Beijing.  The BIS attracted a bit of attention with an article indicating the dollar share of some oil exporters bank deposits was heading down.  And a fairly recent FT Lex column revealed one of the financial world’s worst kept secrets:  a bunch of London hedge fund managers (and equity fund managers) would like to get their hands on a larger fraction of the world’s petrodollars.

2% of $500 billion (or some small share of it) is kind of interesting.   No matter if some hedge funds aren’t delivering the kind of performance needed to justify their fees.  There are plenty of ways of betting on the dollar that don’t involve giving Goldman’s Global Alpha fund 2% of your money and 20% of the (not always present) upside. 

I have spent a lot of time trying to track down data on petrodollars recently.   I am well aware of the gaps in the data – gaps that make it hard to know exactly what the big oil funds are doing.     We don’t know a lot of things.  But I think we still know a few things.  And while Lex got some things right, I also suspect Lex may have missed a few nuances. 

That is telling: if the leading financial column in the leading financial paper of the financial world’s capital for petrodollar recycling isn't picking up on these nuances, it is probably fair to say that knowledge about petrodollars now significantly lags interest in petrodollars  …