Oil traded near $31 a barrel after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela met to discuss cooperating to stabilize the market and U.S. data signaled investors are split on the direction for prices. Futures fell as much as 0.7 percent in New York after earlier rising 1.6 percent. Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi met his Venezuelan counterpart Sunday in Riyadh, the Middle East nation’s Petroleum Ministry said in a statement, without elaborating on what steps are required to shore up the market. Speculators’ short positions on crude were near a record while longs were at the highest since June, increasing total wagers to unprecedented levels, data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission show. “Low prices seem to attract further speculative buying,” said Eugen Weinberg, head of commodities research at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt. “Venezuela’s quest to broker talks between OPEC and non-OPEC was doomed from the very beginning. It […]