Gold Non-Commercial Speculator Positions:
Large precious metals speculators reduced their bullish net positions in the Gold futures markets this week, according to the latest Commitment of Traders (COT) data released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Friday.
The non-commercial futures contracts of Gold futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 258,849 contracts in the data reported through Tuesday, March 31st. This was a weekly decline of -29,517 net contracts from the previous week which had a total of 288,366 net contracts.
The week’s net position was the result of the gross bullish position (longs) sinking by -30,399 contracts (to a weekly total of 287,529 contracts) while the gross bearish position (shorts) declined by just -882 contracts for the week (to a total of 28,680 contracts).
Speculators dropped their bullish bets for the fifth time in the past six weeks and by the largest one-week amount (-29,517 contracts) in the past eight weeks. These decreases have brought the current standing of the speculator bullish bets in gold futures to the lowest level in twenty-four weeks. Despite these recent setbacks, the gold speculator level (+258,849 contracts) remains strongly bullish and above the speculator weekly average for all of 2019 which was +197,440 contracts.
Gold Commercial Positions:
The commercial traders' position, hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes, totaled a net position of -283,959 contracts on the week. This was a weekly boost of 27,864 contracts from the total net of -311,823 contracts reported the previous week.
Gold Futures:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the Gold Futures (Front Month) closed at approximately $1596.60 which was a fall of $-64.20 from the previous close of $1660.80, according to unofficial market data.