Monday, January 13, 2014

Saxo: "Brent Crude net-longs cut by 26.7 percent last week"

More accurately "Saxo's head of commodity strategy, Ole Hansen".
From the Trading Floor blog:
Hedge Funds and other large money managers cut their net-long exposure to Brent crude oil by 36,515 contracts of futures and options during the week of January 7. This was the biggest weekly reduction since May 2012 and it occurred in response to the continued weakness seen since December 27. Gas oil net-longs were cut by 38 percent.

As the table below shows, the significant reduction in Brent crude longs was driven by cuts in gross longs and the addition of gross short positions.
Speculative positioning in Brent Crude and Gas oil
Brent Crude speculative positioning
Source: Ice Exchange, Bloomberg and Saxo Bank
Gas Oil Speculative positioning

Source: Ice Exchange, Bloomberg and Saxo Bank