Weekly Large Trader COT Report: WTI Crude Oil
CFTC COT data shows speculator’s oil bets jumped last week
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 following two weeks of declining bullish bets, 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 +368,769 contracts in the data reported for May 17th. This was a change of +76,809 contracts from the previous week’s total of +291,960 net contracts for the data reported through May 10th.
For the week, the standing non-commercial long positions in oil futures advanced by +32,797 contracts and combined with the short positions that dropped by -44,012 contracts to total the overall weekly net change of +76,809 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) increased their existing bearish positions to a net total position of -351,429 contracts through May 17th. This is a weekly change of -59,808 contracts from the total net amount of -291,621 contracts on May 10th.
USO Crude Oil ETF:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday May 10th to Tuesday May 17th, the USO Oil ETF, which tracks the WTI crude oil price, rose from $10.99 to $11.92, 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).