Energy
Responding to renewed weakness, speculators cut bullish WTI and Brent crude oil bets by a combined 57k lots to 353k lots, thereby reversing the bulk of the buying seen in the aftermath of OPEC+ decision to cut production. The change was led by a combination of longs (-42k lots) bailing out of recently established positions and fresh shorts (+15k) being added. The product market was mixed with buying of the two distillate contracts while gasoline length was reduced. Funds increased their natural gas short by 6% to 82.5k lots in response to a near 13% drop on continued mild weather and rising production.
Metals
Sellers returned to the metal sector with the recently established small longs in gold, silver and copper being flipped to decent size short positions while platinum’s small gain on the week managed to attract additional fresh longs.
Agriculture
The combined long in across the six major grain and oilseed contracts held steady around 471k lots with buyin of soybean oil being offset by selling of corn and wheat. In softs the main action was seen in coffee where months of relative robust price action supported by tight market conditions gave way to a 10% slump driving a 64% reduction in the net long to just 12k lots, an 18 month low. Sugar meanwhile saw net buying with the net long jumping 36% to 107k while recession worries reduced the cotton long to 22k lots and lowest since July 2020.