Traders Turn Bearish on U.S. Oil

Traders are selling West Texas Intermediate futures in anticipation of further strong production growth. As a result, prices are weakening further despite the uncertainty of such an outlook. In fact, expectations from the industry and the EIA are for much slower U.S. oil production growth this year. But that has had no effect on trader behavior. The latter might be in for a surprise. Hedge funds and other institutional traders sold the equivalent of 24 million barrels of U.S. crude in the week to January 16, Reuters market analyst John Kemp reported this…