How Reuters Manipulates The Oil Market, In Two Headlines

100% of the time, Reuters’ oil market manipulation – on behalf of various unnamed deep tate interests – works 100% of the time.

Last Friday morning, just as Brent crude was threatening to extend gains above $80, forcing oil CTAs and other momentum-chasers to close out their near record net short positioning…

… Reuters did what it has done so many times before, and published an oil market manipulating report, designed to crush the price of oil and reverse upward momentum to snuff out the risk of an accelerating short squeeze. As we reported at the time, and with oil just barely above 2024 lows, Reuters cited “six sources who wish to remain anonymous” that OPEC+ is set to proceed with a planned oil output hike from October, because “Libyan outages and pledged cuts by some members to compensate for overproduction counter the impact of sluggish demand” which – as we said – is idiocy as the only thing that matters for oil prices – a bump in Chinese demand – is missing.

Predictably, oil tumbled instantly – a reaction that was naturally welcome by the deep state forces propping up the puppet presidential candidate known as Kamala Harris as it meant even lower gas prices, and  which angered us because as we explained:

… according to Reuters, six OPEC+ sources – who almost certainly are being spoonfed what to tell Reuters by the Deep State which is scrambling to keep gas prices as low as possible ahead of the elections - the plan to increase production remains in place as the loss of Libyan output tightens the market and hopes build that the U.S. Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in mid-September. Which, again, is absolute idiocy, and we expect that OPEC+ will issue an official denial within minutes, especially since Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman previously said OPEC+ could pause or reverse the production hikes if it decides the market is not strong enough, which it clearly is not right now.

Well, we were wrong: it wasn’t minutes, it was a few days… but what is so ridiculous that not even we anticipated that none other than Reuters would report the reversal, discrediting its own credibility but cementing its ability to manipulate the price of oil at will because there are still HFT algos that buy whatever bullshit Reuters has to “report.”

This morning, just 4 days after Reuters reported precisely the opposite, the news wire shocked - and we use the term “shocked” very loosely, because it is precisely what we said would happen -  us with the following…

OPEC+ is discussing a delay in a planned output increase next month as oil prices hit their lowest in 9 months, three sources from the producer group told Reuters on Wednesday.

And one wonders why oil prices hit their lowest in 9 months. Would it have something to do with Reuters own reporting guaranteeing that oil prices would hit 9 month lows?

It gets funnier: just as we said, that the Reuters “report” would guarantee a denial from OPEC+ that it was set to restore output, Reuters reported precisely that:

Last week, the group looked set to proceed with a 180,000 barrel per day (bpd) hike in October, but market volatility from oil facility shutdowns in Libya and a weak demand outlook have raised concern within the group, one of the sources said.

Would it be the same source that spoonfed Reuters the fake news that sparked the oil rout, allowing said source to then quickly load up on oil at a 5% discounted price? And the punchline:

There were suggestions to delay the increase, one of the sources said. Another said a delay was looking highly possible.

Of course, any credible media organization would – or rather should – have considered all of this when it reported Friday’s market manipulating garbage, but of course it’s Reuters, which makes money from sparking volatility in the commodity world, even if it is then forced to refute its own reporting.

So to summarize, what a difference 5 days makes.

To summarize: we are now back to where we were before Reuters’ Friday fake news report, but with momentum now crushed, oil is trading at the lowest price of the year, assuring even lower gas prices – however briefly before we hit tank bottoms – ahead of the election, just as the deep state ordered it…