Many people are in sticker shock thanks to high gas prices and oil that punched through the $135-a-barrel level recently, before sliding back.

Recent Brazilian oil discoveries have lead Brazil’s richest man, Eike Batista, to take his company OGX Petroleo e Gas Participacoes SA public in a $3.37bn share offering. This from Bloomberg:

Brazilian billionaire Eike Batista is planning a 5.59 billion real ($3.37 billion) initial public offering of OGX Petroleo e Gas Participacoes SA, betting the country’s recent oil finds will lure investors who snubbed 20 IPOs this year.

With crude oil prices climbing above $117 a barrel investors are looking for oil price predictions and gas price predictions that may give them clues about oil’s trajectory.

Marc Faber, author of the Gloom Boom & Doom Report, argues that a slowdown in the Chinese economy could put downward on oil prices.

“Let us assume that the unthinkable happens,” says Marc in The Daily Reckoning. “China’s economy slows down sharply, or even contracts – and there are reasons why it could.