Hedge funds slashed their bets on the three main long oil futures contracts by 109 million barrels in the week that ended on June 20th, according to a new report by Reuters. Fund managers are now holding two long positions for every short position at this point – marking one of the most bearish oil price markets since prices fell in 2014. Hedge funds had placed bullish bets on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) ability to reign in the supply glut by cutting output to rebalance markets, but after six months of a 1.2-million-barrel bloc-wide production reduction, oil prices stand no higher than they did at the beginning of 2017 when the deal went into effect. Analysts say the new low could still bring a jump in futures. “We kind of hit bottom after this long drop,” Michael Lynch, the head of Strategic Energy & Economic Research […]