Gold speculative positions edged down last week to +283,851 contracts
GOLD Non-Commercial Positions:
Gold speculator and large futures traders slightly edged their gold bullish positions lower last week for a 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 +283,851 contracts in the data reported through August 16th. This was a weekly change of -2,596 contracts from the previous week’s total of +286,447 net contracts that was registered on August 9th.
Despite gold speculative positions falling for five out of the last six weeks, the spec position is still highly bullish and within approximately 30,000 contracts of the year’s high point of +315,963 contracts.
Gold Commercial Positions:
In the commercial positions for gold on the week, the commercials (hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes) slightly decreased their overall bearish positions to a net total position of -310,993 contracts through August 16th. This was a weekly change of +1,948 contracts from the total net position of -312,941 contracts on August 9th.
GLD ETF:
Over the weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday August 9th to Tuesday August 16th, the price of the (GLD) Gold ETF (NYSE:GLD), which tracks the gold spot price, advanced from approximately $127.96 to $128.47, according to ETF price data of the SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD).
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).