Oil To Fall at $80: Investors' Bets

Investors are shifting their bets towards oil prices weakening in the near future as the slowdown in US economic activity damps energy demand growth, traders in London and New York said, the FT reported.

Oil prices peaked at a high of $100.09 a barrel earlier this month, but hit a three-month low of $85.42 last week.

The outstanding number of put options for June 2008 - contracts that give the right to sell at a pre-determined price - at $80 a barrel have jumped by a factor of four in the past two and half months to more than 47,000 contracts.

Opec ministers meet in Vienna later this week. The WSJ, meanwhile, had a more millenarian take on the oil situation over the weekend, with tales of a looming production crunch.