Weekly CFTC Net Speculator Gold Report
Speculator Positions saw largest weekly gain since July
Gold: Large speculators and futures market traders raised their overall bullish bets in gold higher for a third straight week last week and to the highest level since early September, 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 +85,415 contracts in the data reported through October 14th. This was a weekly change of +18,968 contracts from the previous week’s total of +66,447 net contracts that was registered on October 7th.
The weekly increase in the net spec positions (+18,968) last week marked the largest weekly increase since September 9th. The positive weekly rise was due to a gain in the bullish positions by 19,505 contracts which easily offset a small increase in the weekly bearish positions by just 537 contracts.
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday October 7th to Tuesday October 14th, the gold price moved higher from approximately $1,212.40 to $1,234.30 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).