Copper Non-Commercial Positions:
Large speculators and traders reduced their net positions in the copper futures markets in the final week of 2016 for a second straight week, according to the latest Commitment of Traders (COT) data released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Friday.
The non-commercial futures contracts of copper futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 45,763 contracts in the data reported through December 27th. This was a weekly change of -6,263 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 52,026 net contracts.
Copper speculative positions have now fallen two consecutive weeks after a strong run of seven weekly gains that saw copper positions crossover into bullish territory and surge to the highest level in years.
Copper Commercial Positions:
The commercial traders position, categorized by the CFTC as hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes, totaled a net position of -48,382 contracts last week. This is a weekly change of 4,170 contracts from the total net of -52,552 contracts reported the previous week.
Copper ETN:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the iPath Bloomberg Copper Subindex Total Return Exp 22 Oct 2037 (NYSE:JJC) ETN, which tracks the price of copper, closed at approximately $28.92 which was a change of $0.23 from the previous close of $28.69, according to market data from Yahoo) Finance.