Record Bullish Crude and Copper Bets Face a One-Day Rout
MARKET OVERVIEW: Crude and copper futures positioning sits at the 100th percentile of its three-year range in both contracts even as WTI fell 3.20% on the day and copper miners fell 1.53%, a long bias that grew on the week rather than shrinking into the selloff. Labor and spending data came in mixed ahead of Friday's payrolls: JOLTs job openings missed at 7.079 million against 7.23 million expected, while personal spending at 0.9% month-on-month ran well ahead of personal income at 0.2%. The dollar index firmed 1.0% on the week against a yen long position pared by 15,597 contracts, and prediction markets price an 88% probability that Mojtaba Khamenei leads Iran by the end of 2026 against a 16% probability of a US invasion of Iran before 2027.
TL;DR — the read in bullets
- JOLTs job openings came in at 7.079 million, below the 7.23 million expected and down from 7.335 million prior. Core PCE rose 0.2% month-on-month, cooler than the 0.3% expected though above ...
- The US five-year yield fell 1.65% on the day and 0.40% on the week to 5.005%. Funding markets stayed calm: SOFR traded 2 basis points over the effective fed funds rate, and the ...
- The dollar index firmed 1.0% on the week. Cross-asset volatility pricing shows the same dispersion: the richest premium in the set is the S&P 500 against the VIX, a z-score of +0.09, and ...
- Crude and refined products fell across the board. WTI fell 3.20% on the day and 2.72% on the week to $89.90. Brent fell 2.34% and 4.22% to $99.92. Gasoline fell 3.14% and 2.88% to ...
- The long position in crude and copper barely budged this week even as price fell hard across the complex; nothing in the physical data assembled here settles whether that is a position ...
Go deeper in the weeklies: Physical Metals Weekly · Energy Inventory Weekly · COT Positioning Weekly
Record Bullish Crude and Copper Bets Face a One-Day Rout
WTI crude fell 3.20% on the day and 2.72% on the week to $89.90. Brent fell 2.34% on the day and 4.22% on the week to $99.92. Against that, the latest commitment-of-traders data put WTI net long positioning at the 100th percentile of its three-year range, up 3,132 contracts on the week to a net long of 5,879 contracts. Copper tells the same story at larger scale: its net long position also sits at the 100th percentile of the same three-year window, up 17,108 contracts on the week to 82,649 contracts, even as the Copper Miners ETF fell 1.53% on the day and 3.30% on the week to 83.4.
The long bias in copper has a mechanical anchor. Cash-to-three-month backwardation held above $90 per ton in 16 of the last 20 trading sessions, a market structure that normally signals scarce nearby metal. At the same time, LME warehouse stocks have risen 73% since the start of the year, a figure that normally signals the opposite. Futures positioning is betting that the first signal is the one that matters.
Two of the three categories tracked by the convergence screen fired this session: a high-tier reading from three-year COT extremes across crude, copper and the yen, and a medium-tier reading from US gasoline stocks sitting 16% below their five-year seasonal band. The screen's own bar for a flagged convergence event is three categories, so this sits just under the line, a near miss rather than a confirmed signal.
If nearby supply keeps tightening the way the backwardation implies, the three-year-extreme long position becomes early positioning ahead of a physical squeeze. If nearby supply eases instead, with LME stocks already up 73% year-to-date and the dollar index firmer by 1.0% on the week, the long position becomes the latest crowded trade unwound by a one-day price air pocket. Nothing in the data presented here settles which branch is operating.
MACRO
JOLTs job openings came in at 7.079 million, below the 7.23 million expected and down from 7.335 million prior. Core PCE rose 0.2% month-on-month, cooler than the 0.3% expected though above the 0.1% prior reading. ISM manufacturing PMI read 54.5, short of the 55.0 expected and little changed from 54.6 prior.
GDP growth for the quarter, final reading, came in at 2.2% annualized, above the 1.5% expected but down from the 2.5% prior. Personal income rose 0.2% month-on-month against 0.4% expected and 0.3% prior, while personal spending rose 0.9%, above the 0.8% expected and well above the 0.1% prior.
The macro stress reading sits at 2.3, classified Low, with the weighted regime vote at 64% pre-vote risk-on, built on a VIX near 16, a 2s10s spread of +0.46 described as normal, a financial stress index of -2.24 described as benign, and high-yield spreads at 312 basis points described as tight. The next high-impact release is Non-Farm Payrolls, due 08:30 ET, with consensus at 90,000 against a prior of 162,000. The JOLTs miss already in hand raises the stakes for that release without this commentary taking a position on where it lands. None of the three major data misses this week, JOLTs, core PCE, and personal income, were large enough on their own to move the macro stress reading out of its Low classification.
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