Weekly CFTC Net Speculator Crude Oil Report
CFTC COT data shows speculators push bullish bets up by +22,303 contracts for week
CRUDE OIL: Futures market traders and large speculators sharply added to their overall bullish bets in WTI crude oil futures last week as positions rose to their highest level since October, according to the latest Commitment of Traders (COT) data released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Friday.
The non-commercial contracts of crude oil futures, traded by large speculators, traders and hedge funds, rose to a total net position of +284,079 contracts in the data reported for December 16th. This was a change of +22,303 contracts from the previous week’s total of +261,776 net contracts for the data reported through December 9th.
For the week, standing non-commercial long positions in oil futures rose by a total of +21,277 contracts while the short positions fell by -1,026 contracts to total the overall weekly net change of +22,303 contracts.
The rise in last week’s crude oil positions bring the total bullish positions to the highest level since October 7th when +293,683 contracts were recorded.
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday December 9th to Tuesday December 16th, the WTI crude oil price decreased from $63.82 to $56.26 per barrel, according to Nymex futures price data from investing.com. Brent crude prices, meanwhile, also showed a fall from $66.84 to $60.01 per barrel from Tuesday December 9th to Tuesday December 16th, according to price data from investing.com.
*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).