Weekly CFTC Commitment of Traders Crude Oil Report
CFTC COT data shows speculator’s oil bets fell after four weeks of gains
WTI Crude Oil Non-Commercial Positions:
Futures market traders and large oil speculators cut back on their overall bullish bets last week after boosting bullish positions in the four previous 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 +314,844 contracts in the data reported for April 28th. This was a change of -8,248 contracts from the previous week’s total of +323,092 net contracts for the data reported through April 21st.
For the week, the standing non-commercial long positions in oil futures increased by 2,351 contracts but were overtaken by the short positions that rose by 10,599 contracts to total the overall weekly net change of -8,248 contracts.
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday April 21st to Tuesday April 28th, the WTI crude oil price edged higher from $56.61 to $57.06 per barrel, according to Nymex futures price data from investing.com. Brent crude prices also increased for the week from $62.08 to $64.64 per barrel from Tuesday April 21st to Tuesday April 28th, according to price data from investing.com.
WIT 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) slightly reduced their existing bearish positions for a net total position of -320,617 contracts through April 28th. This is a weekly change of +4,227 contracts from the total net of -324,844 contracts on April 21st.
*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).