OIL PRICES PLUNGING

Crude oil now trades at below $50 , another psychological threshold for the market. Experts now predict oil could go as low as $40 or even $ 30 a barrel. While that's great for U.S. consumers, there comes a point when sustained low prices begin to really hurt energy company stocks and jobs in the U.S. and other countries around the world. Lower prices are also pinching the oil industry, including the previously red –hot Texan economy and high-cost U.S. shale and Canadian oil sands producers. Several thousand layoffs in the energy sector have already been announced.

The oil plunge has been fueled largely by excess supply caused by the North American energy revolution. In an effort to squeeze these new players and maintain market share, OPEC exacerbated the oversupply problem by deciding to keep production steady in late November. Result: There is more oil than we need

The world's appetite for oil no longer looks insatiable. That's largely due to the slowing Chinese economy . The country's oil demand had been growing at incredible rates, but now it's in the low single digits.

Global demand is also being slowed by the fact that the U.S. and other mature economies have become more fuel efficient. Now that the U.S. and Canada have moved towards energy independence, scary headlines out of the Middle East no longer seem to spook the energy markets. The so-called "geopolitical risk premium" built into the price of oil has all but vanished.

If panic hits those financial companies that have a lot of exposure to oil on the upside, the numbers you may think are burlesque or hyperbole like $35 or even $25 a barrel suddenly become real possibilities, if only for a brief period of time. Anything can happen in 2015.