Weekly Large Trader COT Report: WTI Crude Oil
CFTC COT data shows speculator’s dropped oil bets lower last week
WTI Crude Oil Non-Commercial Positions:
Futures market traders and large oil speculators decreased their overall bullish bets in WTI oil futures last week following two weeks of rising 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 +251,151 contracts in the data reported for October 20th. This was a change of -13,841 contracts from the previous week’s total of +264,992 net contracts for the data reported through October 13th.
For the week, the standing non-commercial long positions in oil futures dipped by -2,650 contracts and combined with the short positions that rose by +11,191 contracts to total the overall weekly net change of -13,841 contracts.
WTI Crude Oil Commercial Positions:
In the commercial positions for WTI oil on the week, the commercials (hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes) reduced their existing bearish positions to a net total position of -263,366 contracts through October 20th. This is a weekly change of +11,501 contracts from the total net amount of -274,867 contracts on October 13th.
USO Crude Oil ETF:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday October 13th to Tuesday October 20th, the N:USO Oil ETF, which tracks the WTI crude oil price, declined from $15.06 to $14.73, according to ETF data for the USO United States Oil Fund 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).
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