Then, as the US markets opened on Thursday, Jean Claude Trichet, the president of the ECB, shocked the markets. Let’s let Dennis Gartman rewind the tape for us:

“Mr. Trichet made it clear that a number of ECB policy committee members actually support raising rates very quickly, and he suggested that the committee could move to raise rates as soon as the next policy meeting in the first week of July! Mr. Trichet said yesterday that

” ‘after having carefully examined the situation, we could decide to move our rates (by) a small amount in our next meeting in order to secure the solid anchoring of inflation expectations…. I don’t say it’s certain. I say it’s possible [for] we had a

number of us thinking that, all taken into account, all information, analysis of risks, we had a case for increasing rates… A number of us considered that there was a case for increasing rates, but later some amongst us considered there was not necessarily that case… [yet].’

“Mr. Trichet went on further to say that the ECB is on “heightened alertness” about inflation. At recent meetings Mr. Trichet has made it clear that the decision to keep policy steady was unanimous, but yesterday he said the decision was a consensus, and was not a unanimous decision. That obviously suggested that some on the committee were already voting to tighten, and that, we must admit, caught us off-guard. At the question and answer period following the meeting, Mr. Trichet was asked, following his statement that the decision to hold rate steady was a ‘consensus,’ why the committee had not moved to raise rates. He said that firstly the committee had to signal to the market that it was on the alert; that the debate had shifted from dead center to the edge; that the needle on the monetary tachometer was moving off of top-dead centre. We do not wish to parse things too severely, but it does seem that the committee is prepared to move at the next meeting, and that is a material change from our perspective, for we had thought that the Bank was poised to do nothing for several more months, and that the next move would instead have been to ease, not tighten. Clearly we had that wrong, and now the facts have changed.”

It is not just Dennis who was caught off guard. The entire currency and commodity futures trading markets were surprised (including your humble analyst). The euro exploded up from $1.5395 to $1.5555 in a matter of minutes. Oil rose $6. Gold and grains moved violently. Soybeans “gapped,” as commodities of all sorts responded to a weakening dollar.

If Trichet wanted to “signal” the market, it worked. He got everyone’s attention very quickly.

There was a lot of short covering in the various markets, but especially in oil. But let’s dig deeper.

I have been pondering for a few weeks about whether the long-only commodity index funds are really affecting the markets. Basically, these funds have become a huge part of the commodities market. It is clear that enough buying and in size will affect any market, but these funds do not take delivery. They “roll” their exposure as they get close to expiration, so they are not involved in the spot price. In theory, the spot price should be a function of immediate supply and demand.

But, it is not that simple, as Louis Gave reminded me. Looking at recent CFTC data, investors known as “commercials” were long 827 million barrels of oil. In the early part of the decade it was 3-400 million barrels. Commercials are supposed to be those who are hedging their production of oil. But large oil companies rarely hedge, and smaller producers only hedge a portion of their oil (see more below). Has supply increased over 100%? I think not.

Where is the increase in commercial interest coming from? The clear answer is long-only commodity index funds and ETFs. They simply buy baskets of commodities at whatever the price is, speculating on the rise in the price of the overall commodity market. It is a one-way trade. Jim Rogers is probably the most famous exponent of such trades, but there are scores of funds which mimic what he does. But there are limits to how much exposure speculators can buy, because the CFTC will allow a speculator to only buy so much of any given market, to keep large players from getting a corner on the market and driving up prices, a la the Hunt brothers and silver in 1980. These limits are known as “position limits.”

There are no position limits for commercials who are hedging. They are in theory hedging their physical exposure to a given commodity they are selling or buying. Think of a farmer and General Mills. Both want to lock in the price of wheat so they can plan for the future. Speculators are useful in that they provide liquidity to the markets. In fact, they are essential to a properly functioning market.

The CFTC created a loophole when they allowed investment banks to be classified as commercial investors. So, when a long-only commodity index fund wants to buy a million barrels of oil, they can go to the investment bank, who will sell them a “swap” on the price of oil, and then immediately hedge their exposure in the futures market.

To be sure, the long-only index fund can now create positions far in excess of the position limits that are enforced upon normal speculators. These funds can grow to be huge - multi-tens of billions of dollars. Even though they are speculators, they are not included in the data as speculators. Because they get their exposure from an investment bank, they are ultimately listed as a commercial. In total, they represent an enormous part of the commodities markets. But they are providing liquidity, so what’s the problem? They are not actually hoarding the commodities. The price is still set at the spot price. But.

But that is not the whole story. They are making it difficult, if not dangerous, to short the market. When massive buying comes into the market, it moves the market and sends the signal to the market that prices are rising. Momentum players move in, and prices rise some more.

In fact, as the price of oil has risen from $90 to $100 and higher, normal speculative open interest has declined, as who can afford to fight the tape? At the least, I expect the CFTC to require those “commercials” that are really long-only index funds to provide transparency. Politicians are demanding that something be done. It is entirely possible that they will impose position limits on the long-only funds. As I said last week, when the elephants are dancing, the mice should leave the floor. And Congress and the regulators are very serious elephants indeed. Let’s hope they do whatever they are going to do quickly.

I think smaller investors should take the profits they have made over the last few years in these funds and move to the sidelines until it becomes clear what the rules are going to be. Let me also make it very clear that I am only talking about long-only commodity index funds. Funds that are managed by commodity trading advisors which can go both long and short have the potential to profit from volatility (and of course, they can also lose). In these types of markets, I like funds which are “long vol.” (To be long volatility means you have the potential to benefit from volatile markets.)

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