Hedge funds cut bullish commodity bets by the most in seven weeks on mounting concern that Europe’s debt crisis will restrain global economic growth and demand for raw materials.
Money managers reduced combined net-long positions across 18 U.S. futures and options by 10 percent to 754,558 contracts in the week ended Nov. 15, Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. That’s the biggest decline since the seven days ended Sept. 27. Sugar wagers fell 30 percent, the most since December 2008, and bets on lower copper prices almost doubled.
More than $2 trillion was erased from the value of global equities last week as the MSCI All-Country World Index fell for five consecutive days, the longest losing streak since August. Rates on French, Belgian, Spanish and Austrian bonds rose to euro-era records above German bunds and the cost of insuring against default on Western European debt reached an all-time high. The European Central Bank bought sovereign debt for five days as policy makers failed to agree on containing the crisis.
“We’re in an environment where the outside market factors can overwhelm any fundamental,” said Ron Lawson, a managing director at Logic Advisors, a commodity consultant in Sonoma, California. “When we get uncertainty, people are naturally inclined to just sell.” Index Declines
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