Dislocation in April WTI?

This market never fails to amaze. SFOT had chosen to take a cheeky short break to Amsterdam, but just 2 days away from the market and he is left puffing on his day 1 back. Yes equities are feeling nervy, gold has done some $20 back and forth, GBP has taken a bath, but nothing surprised me more than the sheer performance of the front month WTI contract. Not that it matters that this thing has moved $5 in 2 days. The fact that the entire WTI curve is now trading at a substantial premium to Brent is bizarre, given the well documented stocks in storage in Cushing. What is even more interesting is that we are deep in the fund roll period, which means WTI front month should normally come under pressure, like the past few months. However, the JK09 WTI spread seems particularly resilient. One wonders what the spread might be now if the funds are not doing their rolls this month. It could be stop loss, profit taking from Gasoline crack, CTA entry point for technical spread traders. Whatever it is, SFOT will unlikely get involve in this major move until he gathers what happened. Another major move is in middle distillate cracks, where front crack in Europe has ralied $2 in 2 days. Suspicions of profit taking for this move up is probably a safe answer at this point.

OPEC meeting gather pace and the latest seems to be a couple of headlines on reuters that Saudi may push for only compliance, not more cuts. Whether that is the case or not remains to be seen but with prices seemingly to have found a bottom, they may well decide this way and leave options open for the next meeting.