Andy Hall has been called the God of Oil. As chief of Astenbeck Capital, he has proven at times that even gods can be mortal. In the ‘rising dollar’ period, for example, after making money on the way down Mr. Hall went bullish. That was March 2015:
We suspect their projection of current prices into the future will again be frustrated by the market. For that reason we have closed out all of our bearish bets (at a substantial profit) and started adding to our bullish ones. We might be premature but think the chance of seeing new lows for oil prices – other than possibly at the very front of the curve – is relatively small even though volatility is likely to remain high in the coming months.
In the more than two years since then, Hall has remained steadfast about $100 oil – even as it went to $26. At that time in early 2015, under much the same calm as now, it appeared to be a possibility, perhaps likely. The ‘rising dollar’ was really two events separated by several months (and Chinese currency machinations). What was the calm in between them, which allowed for WTI to climb all the way back above $60 from a then low of around $43, did for a time look like ‘transitory’ weakness.
This post was published at Wall Street Examiner on June 7, 2017.
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