Crude Oil: Hedge funds and other money managers are at their most bullish so far this year, posting a fifth consecutive week of rising bullish bets on Brent crude. Short positions fell by 18 percent last week, according to Bloomberg. “There’s not many people who are willing to short this market,” Tyler Richey, co-editor at Sevens Report in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, told Bloomberg. “We could be near a market top, but it’s just too early to tell. Right now, the path of least resistance is higher for oil.”
Russia’s finance minister Anton Siluanov suggested that Russia and OPEC could fight for market share with U.S. shale, a move that would likely crash prices. “There is a dilemma. What should we do with OPEC: should we lose the market, which is being occupied by the Americans, or quit the deal?” Siluanov said at a forum in Washington. “(If the deal is abandoned) the oil prices will go down, then the new investments will shrink, American output will be lower, because the production cost for shale oil is higher than for traditional output.” |
