Gold Non-Commercial Positions:
Large speculators boosted their bullish net positions in the gold futures markets last week following three weeks of substantial 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 159,767 contracts in the data reported through May 23rd. This was a weekly gain of 33,043 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 126,724 net contracts.
The weekly jump in bullish net positions was the largest one week gain since February and brought the overall net level to the best position since May 2nd. Gold positions had fallen over -73,000 in the previous three weeks.
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 -174,291 contracts last week. This is a weekly decrease of -31,432 contracts from the total net of -142,859 contracts reported the previous week.
Gold ETF (NYSE:GLD):
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the GLD ETF, which tracks the price of gold, closed at approximately $119.14 which was a rise of $1.49 from the previous close of $117.65, according to ETF financial market data.