As market participants continue to weigh two decisively bearish factors for oil prices—slowing oil demand growth and soaring non-OPEC oil supply—two potentially bullish drivers have made money managers return to buying oil in recent weeks. The possibility of a Fed rate cut as soon as next week and the flaring-up of the Iran-West tensions in the Middle East and the world’s most important oil shipping lane, the Strait of Hormuz , resulted in hedge funds buying petroleum futures at the fastest pace in nearly a year in the most recent reporting week, according to exchange data compiled by Reuters market analyst John Kemp . Despite the jump in bets on rising oil prices, the current overall positioning of hedge funds and other money managers points to a further upside for oil prices as the ratio of longs to shorts is still way off the highs in April 2019 and […]