Oil Speculators overall long positions decrease to the lowest level since May 13th
Crude Oil: Large futures market traders and speculators cut back on their overall bullish bets in crude oil futures last week for a third straight 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, primarily traded by large speculators and hedge funds, declined to a total net position of +399,603 contracts in the data reported for July 15th. This was a change of -25,284 contracts from the previous week’s total of +424,887 net contracts for the data reported through July 8th.
For the week, standing long positions fell by 24,702 contracts while short positions rose by 582 contracts to show an overall weekly net change of – 25,284 contracts. Non-commercial positions are now at the lowest level since May 13th when net positions equaled +387,739 contracts.
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday July 8th to Tuesday July 15th, the crude oil price declined from $103.40 to $99.96 per barrel, according to Nymex futures price data from investing.com. Brent crude prices, meanwhile, also showed a drop from $108.94 to $106.88 per barrel from Tuesday July 8th to Tuesday July 15th, according to price data from investing.com.
Disclaimer: 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).