Seeking Alpha – If you happen to be in need of Vaseline and find that your local pharmacy is sold out, never fear. Chances are, the entire stock has been purchased by your friendly neighbourhood hedge fund manager. If you ask nicely, perhaps he’ll let you borrow a tub or two.
One of the signal trends of the past month or so has been the sharp decline in the oil price. Part of this is likely attributable to the China/global growth slowdown theme that Macro Man has highlighted recently, and part of it is likely a result of some sort of dollar strength feedback loop, which itself is at least partially attributable to a softening of the ECB’s rhetoric.
On the face of it, it would appear that the hedge fund world has dodged a bullet in oil. After all, the CFTC data has shown net speculative positioning to be fairly light over the past month or two, and even slightly negative for the last few weeks.
