Weekly CFTC Net Speculator Gold Report
Gold speculative positions rise strongly for a 2nd week
Gold: Gold speculators and large futures traders sharply increased their gold bullish bets last week as the rising gold positions have now gained for three straight weeks, according to the latest Commitment of Traders (COT) data released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Friday.
The non-commercial futures contracts of Comex gold futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of +100,757 contracts in the data reported through April 7th. This was a weekly change of +20,738 contracts from the previous week’s total of +80,019 net contracts that was registered on March 31st.
The weekly gain in the net speculator positions (+20,738 contracts) was due to a rise in the weekly bullish positions by 10,312 contracts combined with a decrease in the weekly bearish positions of -10,426 contracts.
Last week’s increase marked a second straight week of over a +20,000 contract rise and brings the overall net positions to the +100,000 level for the first time since March 3rd.
Over the weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday March 31st to Tuesday April 7th, the gold price advanced from approximately $1,183.20 to $1,210.60 per ounce, according to gold futures 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).