WTI Crude Oil Non-Commercial Positions:
Large speculators and traders raised their net positions in the WTI crude oil futures markets for a fourth consecutive week, according to the latest Commitment of Traders (COT) data released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Friday.
The non-commercial contracts of WTI crude futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 436,661 contracts in the data reported through December 20th. This was a weekly gain of 13,894 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 422,767 net contracts.
WTI Crude Oil 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 -454,097 contracts last week. This is a weekly shortfall of -6,256 contracts from the total net of -447,841 contracts reported the previous week.
USO (NYSE:USO) Crude Oil ETF:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the USO Crude Oil ETF, which tracks the price of WTI crude oil, closed at approximately $11.62 which was a dip of $-0.11 from the previous close of $11.73, according to market data from Yahoo Finance.