Traders Pour $977 Million Into Levered Bet That Oil Will Plunge
Storage tanks at the Vopak Terminal in Deer Park, Texas.
Photographer: Mark Felix/BloombergA cohort of oil traders have made a big leveraged bet that crude prices will tumble from their war-driven highs. So far, many are getting crushed.
Exchange-traded fund investors poured $977 million into the ProShares UltraShort Bloomberg Crude Oil ETF (ticker: SCO) in March — a mix of fresh contrarian wagers and traders doubling down on existing positions — making it the fund’s largest monthly haul since its 2008 inception. SCO delivers twice the inverse of daily crude price moves. Despite the record inflows, SCO’s assets stand at just $970 million, below the total fetched for the entire month.