Weekly Large Trader COT Report: WTI Crude Oil
CFTC COT data shows speculator’s edged oil bets higher to +327,433 contracts
WTI Crude Oil Non-Commercial Positions:
Futures market traders and large oil speculators very slightly added to their overall bullish bets in WTI oil futures last week for a second consecutive 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 +327,433 contracts in the data reported for June 23rd. This was a change of +300 contracts from the previous week’s total of +327,133 net contracts for the data reported through June 16th.
For the week, the standing non-commercial long positions in oil futures fell by -4,931 contracts but were overtaken by a larger decline in the short positions that dropped by -5,231 contracts to total the overall weekly net change of +300 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 for a second week to a net total position of -334,959 contracts through June 23rd. This is a weekly change of -4,073 contracts from the total net amount of -330,886 contracts on June 16th.
United States Oil (NYSE:USO):
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday June 16th to Tuesday June 23rd, the USO United States Oil Fund LP ETF, which tracks the WTI crude oil price, increased from $20.26 to $20.47, according to ETF data from Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) Finance.
*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).