Speculator Positions rise to highest level since July 8th
Gold: Futures bets by gold market speculators rebounded last week to their highest level in five weeks after overall bullish bets had declined the two previous weeks, 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 +147,681 contracts in the data reported through August 12th. This was a weekly change of +26,218 contracts from the previous week’s total of +121,463 net contracts that was registered on August 5th.
The rise in the overall net speculator positions (+26,218) last week was due to a push higher in the weekly bullish positions by 14,939 contracts while bearish positions saw a decline by 11,279 contracts. Last week’s increase in overall bullish positions marked the highest level for gold speculators since July 8th when positions equaled +150,021 contracts.
Over the weekly same reporting time-frame, from Tuesday August 5th to Tuesday August 12th, the gold price traded higher from approximately $1,285.30 to $1,310.60 per ounce, according to gold futures 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).