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FT Alphaville » The “other reportables” oil mystery

From John Kemp at Reuters on Monday (our emphasis):

Hedge funds and other money managers reduced their long position in U.S. crude by the equivalent of nearly 54 million barrels of oil, the largest one-week decline since at least June 2006, according to data released by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Friday. The long liquidation was three times greater than in the “flash crash”, almost exactly a year ago on May 5, 2011, when speculative longs were cut by a little under 19 million barrels.—–

The ratio of hedge fund long to short positions halved from 6.2:1 to just 3.2:1, the lowest since October 2011, and far below the recent peak of 11.8, back at the height of the oil price spike in February (Chart 1).

While the 54m barrel reduction in hedge fund/managed money longs is interesting in its own right, Kemp observes that just as curious are the changes on the short side.

via FT Alphaville » The “other reportables” oil mystery.

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