Gold Non-Commercial Positions:
Large speculators sharply boosted their net positions in the gold futures markets last week following two weeks of falling bullish bets, 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 123,763 contracts in the data reported through February 21st. This was a weekly gain of 14,011 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 109,752 net contracts.
Last week’s rise in speculative bets marked the largest one week gain since November 1st and speculative positions have now advanced to the highest level since December 13th when net positions stood at 129,311 contracts.
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 -139,564 contracts last week. This is a weekly change of -11,776 contracts from the total net of -127,788 contracts reported the previous week.
Gold ETF (NYSE:GLD):
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the GLD GLD ETF, which tracks the price of gold, closed at approximately $117.75 which was a rise of $0.82 from the previous close of $116.93, according to ETF financial market data.