WTI Crude Oil Non-Commercial Positions:
Large speculators and traders continued to raise their net bullish positions in the WTI crude oil futures markets and into the final week of 2016, 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 444,932 contracts in the data reported through December 27th. This was a weekly gain of 8,271 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 436,661 net contracts.
WTI speculative positions finished out the year of 2016 at their highest bullish level and on a five week rally.
WTI Crude Oil Commercial Positions:
Meanwhile, 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 -459,370 contracts last week. This is a weekly change of -5,273 contracts from the total net of -454,097 contracts reported the previous week.
USO Crude Oil ETF (NYSE:USO):
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 $11.73 which was a slight rise of $0.11 from the previous close of $11.62, according to market data from Yahoo Finance.