Weekly CFTC Net Speculator Crude Oil Report
Oil Speculators overall long positions fall to the lowest level since May 2013
Crude Oil: Futures market traders and large speculators sharply cut back on their overall bullish bets in crude oil futures last week after bets had gained for the previous two 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, declined to a total net position of +255,363 contracts in the data reported for November 18th. This was a change of -21,469 contracts from the previous week’s total of +276,832 net contracts for the data reported through November 11th.
For the week, standing non-commercial long positions in oil futures decreased by a total of 38,406 contracts which overcame the short positions that fell by 16,937 contracts to total the overall weekly net change of -21,469 contracts.
The non-commercial trader’s net position has now fallen to the lowest overall net speculator level since May 14th 2013 when net positions equaled +232,590 contracts.
Meanwhile, over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday November 11th to Tuesday November 18th, the WTI crude oil price dropped from $77.94 to $74.64 per barrel, according to Nymex futures price data from investing.com. Brent crude prices, meanwhile, also showed a decrease from $82.39 to $78.47 per barrel from Tuesday November 11th to Tuesday November 18th, according to price data from investing.com.
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).