Between 04 and 06 Feb, we saw the Apr’25 Brent futures contract fall more than $2 down to an intraday low of $74.15/bbl at 1800 GMT on 06 Feb, perhaps as an ongoing bearish reaction to President Trump’s postponement of tariffs against Canada and Mexico. Crude oil prices made a steady recovery thereafter, retracing to a touch above $77/bbl on 11 Feb. However, the Apr’25 futures contract hit resistance at $77.05/bbl and has since fallen back down to $74.80/bbl at 0900 GMT on 13 Feb (time of writing). Despite this latest weakness, Onyx’s weekly CFTC COT predictor anticipates speculative players could add risk in Brent, while reducing their short positions for the week ending 11 Feb. Managed-by-money long positions are expected to increase by almost 8.6mb, or around +2.3% w/w. Meanwhile, speculators are projected to remove 2.4mb from their short positions (-2.8% w/w). Finally, prod/merc players are expected to add around 21.6mb and 28.5mb to their long and short positions, respectively.
