Weekly CFTC Commitment of Traders Crude Oil Report
CFTC COT data shows speculator’s oil bets fell lower last week
WTI Crude Oil Non-Commercial Positions:
Futures market traders and large oil speculators decreased their overall bullish bets last week following rises in five out of the previous six weeks, 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 +320,212 contracts in the data reported for May 12th. This was a change of -5,494 contracts from the previous week’s total of +325,706 net contracts for the data reported through May 5th.
For the week, the standing non-commercial long positions in oil futures decreased by -18,321 contracts, while the short positions also fell by -12,827 contracts to total the overall weekly net change of -5,494 contracts.
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday May 5th to Tuesday May 12th, the WTI crude oil price edged slightly higher from $60.04 to $60.75 per barrel, according to Nymex futures price data from Investing.com. Brent crude prices, meanwhile, edged lower for the week from $64.52 to $67.38 per barrel from Tuesday May 5th to Tuesday May 12th, 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) cut back on their existing bearish positions to a net total position of -322,106 contracts through May 12th. This is a weekly change of +6,404 contracts from the total net of -328,510 contracts on May 5th.
*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).