Gold Non-Commercial Positions:
Large speculators and traders increased their net positions in the gold futures markets last week for a second consecutive 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 Comex gold futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 119,155 contracts in the data reported through January 31st. This was a weekly gain of 9,748 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 109,407 net contracts.
Speculative positions have now seemed to stabilize (from their recent decline) and remain over the +100,000 net position threshold for a fourth week after falling under this level for two weeks at the end of December and beginning of January.
Gold Commercial Positions:
The commercial traders position, categorized by the CFTC as hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes, totaled a net position of -131,803 contracts last week. This is a weekly decline of -5,429 contracts from the total net of -126,374 contracts reported the previous week.
Gold ETF:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the GLD (NYSE:GLD) ETF, which tracks the price of gold, closed at approximately $115.55 which was a edge higher by $0.28 from the previous close of $115.27, according to ETF financial market data.