Silver Non-Commercial Speculator Positions:
Large speculators boosted their bullish net positions in the Silver futures markets this week for a second straight 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 Silver futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 30,759 contracts in the data reported through Tuesday August 1st. This was a weekly lift of 11,342 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 19,417 net contracts.
This was the second straight week of net positions gaining by over +10,000 contracts and pushed the overall net position to the highest level in five weeks.
Silver 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 -39,667 contracts on the week. This was a weekly decline of -10,135 contracts from the total net of -29,532 contracts reported the previous week.
iShares Silver (NYSE:SLV) ETF:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the SLV ishares ETF, which tracks the price of silver, closed at approximately $15.79 which was an increase of $0.20 from the previous close of $15.59, according to unofficial market data.