The CFTC Commitments of Traders disaggregated report dated 12 May 2026 (covering positions as of 28 April) showed NYMEX WTI managed money net long at plus 80,331 contracts and NYMEX Brent Last Day managed money net long at plus 13,812 contracts1. Speculative money was long both benchmarks through the last week of April.
The WTI book was nearly six times the Brent Last Day book, and neither showed a long-Brent, short-WTI split. Speculators carried that length into May, the same pricing environment that took Brent through $110 a barrel by 18 May.
With both books long, a benign Hormuz headline hits speculative length on both benchmarks rather than on one leg of a spread. ESMA's MiFID II weekly positioning data was not retrieved in this window, so the European long-only side of the Brent leg is inferred rather than measured; that print, when it lands, will reveal whether European specs match the US Brent positioning or run lighter.
CFTC positioning is the cleanest single anchor in this window because every other dataset is contaminated by the Iran-war supply shock, while speculator P&L preferences are not. Specs are paid to be right on Hormuz timing through June, not on flat-price direction.
