Andrew Hall crushed a month after calling oil bears 'Cassandras'

Andrew John Hall was called the 'god of crude oil trading' after an incredible stretch of trading that included a $100 million bonus in 2009. He made more in the years afterwards as money flowed into his Astenbeck hedge fund.

Throughout this year he stubbornly bet on crude oil and has been absolutely obliterated. Dow Jones reports he lost 9.7% in November.

His Dec 1 letter to investors was in the news yesterday.

"It was anticipated that U.S. shale producers, the source of the explosive growth in supply in recent years, would be the first to fold," Andrew Hall, chief executive of the commodities hedge fund Astenbeck Capital Management LLC, wrote in a Dec. 1 letter to investors reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. "But this hasn't happened, at least not at the rate initially expected."

Fifteen months ago, he was making headlines saying oil would hit $150 in five years or less.

Through October, his fund was down 18% year to date. Another 9.7% takes the loss above 26%. I imagine he will be taking a few redemption calls between now and year-end.

A month ago, in his letter to investors he called oil bears "Cassandras" whose pessimistic outlook suggests that stocks of distillates including diesel would outgrow storage capacity, causing refineries to reduce processing and prices to collapse.

"We think such a scenario is highly unlikely," Hall wrote. "Whilst localized dislocations are certainly possible, there is no general shortage of storage capacity globally for either crude oil or oil products."