Money Managers’ Positions in Crude
Happy World Bee Day! For the week to May 14, we saw differing positions adopted by both prod/merc players and money managers across the two benchmarks.
Brent futures saw prod/merc players be bullish, whilst WTI futures saw these players display an ever-so-slightly bullish but mainly a risk-off attitude. Furthermore, despite the bearishness displayed by money managers in Brent, the same players have been very bullish on WTI, owing mainly to the 21mbbls (-20.5%) reduction in short positions, resulting in an overall risk-off attitude.
Open interest across the two crude grades declined by 42.4mbbls (-1%), with combined net positioning decreasing by 31.8mbbls (-9%) amongst speculators to its lowest point since the week to Jan 23, spurred by the removal of long positions in Brent futures, indicating their bearishness.
Both the Brent and WTI Jul contracts saw mostly flat price action last week around $82-84/bbl and $77-79.50/bbl levels, respectively.
Overall, combined long positions in the crude futures reversed last week’s increase and declined by 51mbbls (-9.3% w-o-w). Combined short positions also decreased but by a smaller 19.2mbbls (-10.2%).
