Oil’s Low Prices Draw Rash Of Hedging

Last week’s crashing oil prices were awfully tempting last week for big oil consumers, who took advantage of the low prices to hedge against the inevitable price rise. Major oil consumers such as airlines boosted their hedging at a rapid pace, according to a Bloomberg analysis of trading data. It was clear last week that there was a sharp rise in trading activity for crude oil, but the extent of the flurry of activity is only now quantifiable with bank positioning data, Bloomberg said. Swap dealers saw the second-largest increase on record…