Hedge funds have turned super-bearish about U.S. oil prices as concerns about running out of storage trump the drop in the number of rigs drilling new wells. Money managers had amassed a record number of short positions in futures and options contracts linked to WTI (West Texas Intermediate) by the end of March 17, equivalent to 209 million barrels of oil, according to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) latest commitments of traders report published on Friday. Money managers still have long positions equivalent to 381 million barrels, so overall the sector is still running a net long position. Hedge fund managers have a natural bullish bias. Not once have hedge funds as a whole been net short of WTI futures and options in the last nine years ( link.reuters.com/daf44w ). But the ratio of long to short positions last week, at 1.8:1, was the […]