The fund held 23.5% of June West Texas Intermediate crude futures contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange as of Monday. It also holds some July contracts, a change it implemented earlier this month.
Investors looking to bet against the ETF may explain some of the demand for new shares, according to JonesTrading’s Dave Lutz. In the “create-to-lend” process, new shares of an ETF are generated in order for traders to borrow and sell short.
With the halt of new share creations, USO is likely to become further unmoored from its net-asset value, Lutz said.
“The ETF should completely disconnect from fundamentals and could cause a hell of a short squeeze,” he wrote in a note Tuesday.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.