Weekly CFTC Commitment of Traders Crude Oil Report
CFTC COT data shows speculator’s oil bets ascended higher last week
WTI Crude Oil Non-Commercial Positions:
Futures market traders and large oil speculators sharply increased their overall bullish bets in WTI oil futures last week, according to the latest Commitment of Traders (COT) data released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Friday.
The non-commercial contracts of crude oil futures, traded by large speculators, traders and hedge funds, totaled a net position of +343,431 contracts in the data reported for May 19th. This was a change of +23,219 contracts from the previous week’s total of +320,212 net contracts for the data reported through May 12th.
For the week, the standing non-commercial long positions in oil futures fell by -7,828 contracts, while oil traders cut their short positions by -31,047 contracts to total the overall weekly net change of +23,219 contracts.
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday May 12th to Tuesday May 19th, the WTI crude oil price declined from $60.75 to $57.99 per barrel, according to Nymex futures price data from investing.com. Brent crude prices, meanwhile, edged lower for the week from $67.38 to $64.02 per barrel from Tuesday May 12th to Tuesday May 19th, according to price data from investing.com.
WTI Crude Oil Commercial Positions:
In the commercial positions for oil on the week, the commercials (hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes) added to their existing bearish positions to a net total position of -350,540 contracts through May 19th. This is a weekly change of -28,434 contracts from the total net of -322,106 contracts on May 12th.
COT Report: The weekly commitment of traders report summarizes the total trader positions for open contracts in the futures trading markets. The CFTC categorizes trader positions according to commercial hedgers (traders who use futures contracts for hedging as part of the business), non-commercials (large traders who speculate to realize trading profits) and nonreportable traders (usually small traders/speculators).