Oil Bulls Heartened by Prospect of Tougher Sanctions: Kemp
• Analyst John Kemp reports hedge funds and other money managers purchased the equivalent of 97 million barrels in the six most important petroleum futures and options contracts in the seven days ending Jan 7.
• Fund managers have now purchased 536m bbl over the last 17 weeks, based on reports from ICE Futures Europe and the US CFTC.
• The result is a net long of 501 million barrels from a record bearish net short of 34m bbl on Sep 10. Most has been in crude oil (387 million bbl) rather than refined fuels (149 million) as the prospective surplus in crude has disappeared.
• In the most recent week, funds added 78m bbl of new bullish long positions in crude, the largest one-week increase in nine months. The total across Brent and WTI has risen to 434m bbl, the highest since last April.
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We have published and e-mailed to subscribers the MNI US Macro Weekly offering succinct MNI analysis across the range of macro developments over the past week. Please find the full report here:
The trend direction in USDCAD remains up and this week’s gains to a fresh cycle high, reinforces the current bullish theme. The pair has cleared 1.4178, the Nov 26 high, to confirm resumption of the uptrend and maintain the price sequence of higher highs and higher lows. Sights are on 1.4246 next, a Fibonacci projection. Key short-term support has been defined at 1.3928, the Nov 25 low. Initial support to watch lies at 1.4069, the 20-day EMA.