After the M1 Brent futures contract breached $80/bbl last week, climbing to a touch above $82.50/bbl on 15 Jan, Mar’25 flat price has steadily declined to $79.00/bbl at 0830 GMT on 23 Jan (time of writing). Bearish sentiment has emerged in crude oil as US President Trump signed a series of executive orders this week to boost domestic oil and gas production, while geopolitical risk eased with the approval of a Gaza ceasefire deal. In line with this bearishness, Onyx’s weekly CFTC COT predictor anticipates speculative players to be risk-off in Brent, while increasing their short positions for the week ending 21 Jan. Managed-by-money long positions are expected to decrease by just over 400kb, a minimal 0.001% deduction from their total 361.6mb long position. Meanwhile, speculators are projected to add 1mb to their short positions (+1% w/w). Finally, prod/merc players are expected to add around 43.5mb and 48.5mb to their long and short positions, respectively.
