Gold Non-Commercial Positions:
Large speculators increased their bullish net positions in the gold futures markets last week for the second consecutive week, 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 137,820 contracts in the data reported through March 28th. This was a weekly rise of 21,568 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 116,252 net contracts.
Gold speculators have now boosted their bullish bets to a four week high (since +163,798 net contracts on February 28th) and bullish bets have risen four out of the last six weeks.
Gold Commercial Positions:
The commercial traders position, categorized by the CFTC as hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes, totaled a net position of -152,114 contracts last week. This is a weekly change of -23,117 contracts from the total net of -128,997 contracts reported the previous week.
Gold ETF (NYSE:GLD):
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the GLD ETF, which tracks the price of gold, closed at approximately $119.04 which was a advance of $0.50 from the previous close of $118.54, according to ETF financial market data.