Gold speculative positions rose last week to +294,183 contracts
GOLD Non-Commercial Positions:
Gold speculator and large futures traders sharply increased their gold bullish positions higher last week following three straight weeks of declines, 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 Comex gold futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of +294,183 contracts in the data reported through August 2nd. This was a weekly change of +15,228 contracts from the previous week’s total of +278,955 net contracts that was registered on July 26th.
Last week’s gain by +15,228 net contracts was the largest weekly increase since June 14th when net positions jumped by +51,243 contracts.
Gold Commercial Positions:
In the commercial positions for gold on the week, the commercials (hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes) added to their overall bearish positions to a net total position of -324,027 contracts through August 2nd. This was a weekly change of -15,004 contracts from the total net position of -309,023 contracts on July 26th.
GLD ETF:
Over the weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday July 26th to Tuesday August 2nd, the price of the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (NYSE:GLD), which tracks the gold spot price, rose from approximately $126.01 to $130.27, according to GLD ETF price data.
*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).