Weekly Large Trader COT Report: WTI Crude Oil
CFTC COT data shows speculator’s edged oil bets lower last week
WTI Crude Oil Non-Commercial Positions:
Futures market traders and large oil speculators slightly decreased their overall bullish bets in WTI oil futures last week as speculative oil bets fell for a second 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 +299,672 contracts in the data reported for June 28th. This was a change of -4,567 contracts from the previous week’s total of +304,239 net contracts for the data reported through July 5th.
For the week, the standing non-commercial long positions in oil futures advanced by 9,046 contracts but were overcome by the short positions that increased by 13,613 contracts to total the overall weekly net change of -4,567 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 decreased their existing bearish positions to a net total position of -305,037 contracts through June 28th. This is a weekly change of +2,747 contracts from the total net amount of -307,784 contracts on July 5th.
USO Crude Oil ETF:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday June 28th to Tuesday July 5th, the USO Oil ETF, which tracks the WTI crude oil price, edged down from $11.47 to $11.18, 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).