Weekly Large Trader COT Report: WTI Crude Oil
WTI Crude Oil Non-Commercial Positions:
Futures market traders and large oil speculators sharply raised their overall bullish bets in WTI oil futures last week as speculators cut back on their bearish positions, 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 +334,175 contracts in the data reported for April 19th. This was a change of +45,014 contracts from the previous week’s total of +289,161 net contracts for the data reported through April 12th.
For the week, the standing non-commercial long positions in oil futures rose by 9,792 contracts and combined with the short positions that dropped sharply by -35,222 contracts to total the overall weekly net change of +45,014 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) boosted their existing bearish positions to a net total position of -325,778 contracts through April 19th. This is a weekly change of -46,544 contracts from the total net amount of -279,234 contracts on April 12th.
USO Crude Oil ETF:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday April 12th to Tuesday April 19th, the USO Oil ETF, which tracks the WTI crude oil price, dipped slightly from $10.64 to $10.44, according to ETF data for the USO United States Oil Fund LP ETF (NYSE:USO).
*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).