Money Managers’ Positions in Crude
For the week to Mar 05, crude futures overall displayed a more risk-off approach with a slight bearish bias, after having adopted a bullish outlook for the previous 3 weeks. Speculators in WTI were observed liquidating both longs and to a greater extent shorts, whilst Brent portrayed a bearish tone through the removal of almost 20mbbls of length, coupled with a small increase of 3mbbls in short positioning. As a consequence, crude net positioning fell by 14mbbls (-3%) to just above the 400mbbls mark. Price action for both benchmarks seems to be lacking any real conviction with their movements, with Brent and WTI seemingly finding resistance at $84/bbl and $80/bbl levels, respectively. It will be important to keep an eye out for any progression towards a ceasefire between Gaza and Israel with Ramadan now underway.
