Oil is back in with investors as hedge funds and big money flock back to the barrels. The weekly commitment of trader (COT) reported that crude futures traded by large speculators and hedge funds totaled a net position of 492,692 contracts in the data reported through January 31st, a gain of 10,169 contracts from the previous week. In fact, this is the third week in a row that big money has moved into crude oil, raising their interest by almost 12% in recent weeks even as U.S. oil rig counts and U.S. supply increases. The reason is that the big money is looking beyond the near-term glut and focused on a large OPEC production cut and rising global demand and increasing tension with Iran.

Even as the U.S. oil rig count rose by 17 to 583 rigs this week and is the highest since October of 2015, the big money knows it will take time for U.S. producers to erase the cuts that OPEC and non-OPEC players like Russia have already made. Rigs in the Permian basin are hot but in other formations we may have to see a higher price for oil to reignite the investment appetite.

Iran is launching another missile. President Trump called Iran a terrorist state, a charge that Russian President Vladimir Putin strongly disagrees with. Still the U.S. last week imposed sanctions on 13 individuals and 12 entities related to Iran’s missile program. On Saturday Iran held a military exercise to test its missile and its radar system. Iran is also threatening Israel saying that if the U.S. attacks Iran, they will fire a missile at Israel. There are I24 reports that a senior Iranian official on Saturday warned that Tehran would immediately strike Israel if the United States “makes a mistake” as a war of words continued to escalate in the wake of Iran’s ballistic missile testing and Washington’s announcement of new sanctions in response. Mojtaba Zonour, a senior member of Iran’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission and a former Revolutionary Guards official, was quoted in Fars news agency as saying that, “only 7 minutes is needed for the Iranian missile to hit Tel Aviv.”