Holiday-delayed data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed large speculators in ULSD futures and options significantly reducing the massive net short position that was held in early December.

Chances are that net short bias in diesel is being worked down with the recent rally in futures prices.

For the week ending Dec. 24, money managers cut the net short bias to 18,809 contracts. That's the lowest it had been since the beginning of November.

Speculators cut a little more than 13,000 net short positions by covering more than 12,000 short contracts during the most recent week.

Although the market has been largely rangebound for West Texas Intermediate crude oil, money managers have the widest long-to-short skew in three months at 4.26 longs for every short. Outright longs of just shy of 239,000 futures and options contracts represent the highest positioning to the long side since late July. Shorts were steady in the 56,000 contract area and the net long bias of 182,895 lots is the widest since late summer.

RBOB length amongst speculators has dropped in each of the past two weeks while short exposure has inched higher. Overall, the net long bias stands at 57,366 contracts and the long-to-short ratio is at a six-week low of 4.16 longs for every short.

This content was created by Oil Price Information Service, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. OPIS is run independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

-- Reporting by Denton Cinquegrana, dcinquegrana@opisnet.com; editing by Steve Cronin, scronin@opisnet.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 30, 2024 16:15 ET (21:15 GMT)

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