For more than ten weeks, portfolio managers have been consistently amassing bullish bets in the most important petroleum futures contracts, as market fundamentals were pointing to OPEC over-delivering on the production cuts, Venezuela’s supply crashing, and potential losses from conflict-torn Libya, amid resilient global oil demand growth. Last week, oil prices jumped on Monday on the news that the U.S. is ending the sanction waivers for all Iranian oil buyers. And hedge funds continued to bet on higher prices and a tightening oil market. However, the net long position—the difference between bullish and bearish bets—in WTI and Brent begins to look too stretched to the bullish side, making oil prices vulnerable to declines now if (or rather, when) money managers decide to do some profit taking and liquidate some of their bets on rising oil prices, analysts say. According to data compiled by Reuters market analyst John Kemp , […]