Oil Speculators overall long positions drop again to lowest standing since February 4th
Crude Oil: Large futures market traders and speculators cut back their overall bullish bets in crude oil futures last week for the fifth straight week and to a new low level since early February, 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, primarily traded by large speculators and hedge funds, fell to a total net position of +364,739 contracts in the data reported for July 29th. This was a change of -6,705 contracts from the previous week’s total of +371,444 net contracts for the data reported through July 22nd.
For the week, standing long positions gained for the first time in five weeks by 2,541 contracts but were offset by a rise in the short positions by 9,246 contracts to show an overall weekly net change of -6,705 contracts. Non-commercial positions hit a new low level since February 4th when net positions equaled +360,217 contracts.
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday July 22nd to Tuesday July 29th, the crude oil price decreased from $102.39 to $100.97 per barrel, according to Nymex futures price data from investing.com. Brent crude prices, meanwhile, edged up slightly from $107.33 to $107.72 per barrel from Tuesday July 22nd to Tuesday July 29th, according to price data from investing.com.
Disclaimer: 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).