Hedge funds have turned more pessimistic on oil as prices flirted with $40 a barrel for the first time since August. “The speculators keep trying to pick the bottom and keep getting burned,” Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research in Winchester, Massachusetts, said by phone. Money managers’ short bets in West Texas Intermediate crude surged 21 percent in the week ended Nov. 10, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The net-long position dropped 16 percent. The release of the figures was delayed because of Veterans Day on Nov. 11.