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Bloomberg
Hedge funds are betting Opec will struggle to reverse oil’s precipitous plunge. Their combined wagers against West Texas Intermediate and Brent crude soared for a seventh straight week, the longest global short-selling streak in data going back to 2011. The bearish bets jumped 14 percent in the week ended on November 13 and have tripled since the end of September, according to data from the US Commodity Futures Trade Commission and ICE Futures Europe.
With oil prices slipping into a bear market, Opec has promised to do what it takes to cut output.
Still, it’s unclear how far the cartel and its allies will go and it may take a reduction well beyond the 1 million barrels a day that’s been publicly discussed to restore faith, said Daniel Ghali, a commodities strategist at TD Securities in Toronto.