Weekly Large Trader COT Report: WTI Crude Oil
CFTC COT data shows speculator’s nudged oil bets higher last week
WTI Crude Oil Non-Commercial Positions:
Futures market traders and large oil speculators just slightly edged their overall bullish bets higher in WTI oil futures last week to rise for 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 contracts of crude oil futures, traded by large speculators, traders and hedge funds, totaled a net position of +334,265 contracts in the data reported for April 26th. This was a change of +90 contracts from the previous week’s total of +334,175 net contracts for the data reported through April 19th.
For the week, the standing non-commercial long positions in oil futures advanced by 4,234 contracts and just surpassed the short positions that rose by 4,144 contracts to total the overall weekly net change of +90 contracts.
WTI Crude Oil Commercial Positions:
In the commercial positions for oil on the week, the commercials (hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes) slightly cut back on their existing bearish positions to a net total position of -325,075 contracts through April 26th. This is a weekly change of +703 contracts from the total net amount of -325,778 contracts on April 19th.
USO Crude Oil ETF:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday April 19th to Tuesday April 26th, the USO Oil ETF, which tracks the WTI crude oil price, advanced from $10.44 to $10.81, according to ETF data for the USO United States Oil Fund (NYSE:USO) LP ETF.
*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).