Weekly CFTC Commitment of Traders Crude Oil Report
CFTC COT data shows speculator’s trimmed oil bets 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 for the second week in a row, 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 +325,855 contracts in the data reported for June 9th. This was a change of -13,663 contracts from the previous week’s total of +339,518 net contracts for the data reported through June 2nd.
For the week, the standing non-commercial long positions in oil futures fell by 10,652 contracts and combined with the short positions that increased by 3,011 contracts to total the overall weekly net change of -13,663 contracts.
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday June 2nd to Tuesday June 9th, the WTI crude oil price slipped from $61.26 to $60.14 per barrel, according to Nymex futures price data from investing.com. Brent crude prices, meanwhile, edged lower from $65.49 to $64.88 per barrel from Tuesday June 2nd to Tuesday June 9th, according to price data from investing.com.
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) decreased their existing bearish positions for a 3rd week to a net total position of -325,134 contracts through June 9th. This is a weekly change of +14,821 contracts from the total net amount of -339,955 contracts on June 2nd.
*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).