Short Sellers Are Taking Control Of Oil Markets Once Again

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March triggered massive capital flight from oil to precious metals as panic spread that this could be the early innings of yet another banking and financial crisis. According to commodity analysts at Standard Chartered, the SVB collapse led to the fastest-ever move to the short side in oil markets, with speculative short volumes more than six times larger than those after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns in 2008. Money-manager positions across the four main Brent and WTI futures contracts became…