What's Behind Oil Price Volatility?

[J Owens + 45]

Everything seemed so bullish at the end of last week, and geopolitical risk seems to be growing by the day. With that in mind I was pretty surprised to see oil prices down two and a half percent... any ideas what this is on?

I can see Russian production increased https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Is-Russia-Cheating-On-The-OPEC-Deal.html but surely with all the bullish noise from OPEC and Russia, this isn't enough to justify such a dip?

[BeamMeUp + 11]

Russia production up, Saudi Arabia's prices down. I don't think it takes much these days to move the needle.

[TomTom + 183]

As always, it looks like a combination of factors... huge Cushing build, geopolitical uncertainty, Russia ups production, Iraq says it wants to boost production to 6.5 million bpd by 2022... hedge funds taking some profits...  did I forget something?

[Rodent + 1,424]

Just now, BeamMeUp said:

Russia production up, Saudi Arabia's prices down. I don't think it takes much these days to move the needle.

I don't think Saudi Arabia lowered their oil prices (to Asia, I believe you mean). I think most people think this is coming, but I don't think they pulled the trigger yet.

[J Owens + 45]

15 minutes ago, Rodent said:

I don't think Saudi Arabia lowered their oil prices (to Asia, I believe you mean). I think most people think this is coming, but I don't think they pulled the trigger yet.

I saw they lowered Arab light prices in early March https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-05/saudis-cut-asia-light-oil-pricing-for-first-time-in-eight-months - but I haven't seen anything since then. Certainly nothing to trigger a drop... But as @BeamMeUp says - maybe it just doesn't take much these days. Algo trading makes these markets so hard to follow.

[dbdicker + 2]

Lots of Longs - and historically low numbers of shorts.  That usually leads to a correction.  Temporary.

 

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[J Owens + 45]

1 hour ago, dbdicker said:

Lots of Longs - and historically low numbers of shorts.  That usually leads to a correction.  Temporary.

 

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Interesting - I wasn't actually aware there were still so few shorts. 

Is there anywhere I can track longs and shorts on a daily/weekly basis? 

[TomTom + 183]

Have a look here - this is last week's data, but should give you a good overview of open interest, longs and shorts in WTI and Brent: https://www.cftc.gov/dea/futures/petroleum_lf.htm

[Whiskeyman + 2]

What category on the report you are referring too?

[Whiskeyman + 2]

I see 438k Kong’s vs 525k shorts, not sure where you are looking at I am under two New York merc? 

[KMZ + 4]

How about the increasing risks of trade wars and heightened protectionism, which does not  bode well for the world economy?

[Christine Allen 0]

We are in an interesting place at the moment with Oil and all forms of Renewable Energy.

[Linda Lindsey 0]

Thanks for the info.

[William Lynch 0]

Thanx, I'm IN !!!

[Troy Rhodes 0]

Thanks for the invitation! I'm in!

[Ray Boyd + 1]

Thanks For the invite

[Michael G. Green + 1]

Lets get the barrel rolling and make some money

[Ariyo Oluwatosin + 3]

Thanks for the opportunity to be here

[Moise + 3]

All these daily/ weekly ups and down are just background noise.

Look at the long term trends

[cattleman + 29]

I have read when money managers are long in excess of 300,000 contracts a top is about in, last night into todays 5 min chart looks kinda stinky to me, the same rallies spread about 4 hours apart looks like a large entity that has to abide by large account rules coming in to establish a maybe long term position and the lack of sellers throught todays trade concerns me, its either a fake ya then break or we are going to 70$, nothing like standing on both sides of the fence huh