S&P500 Non-Commercial Positions:
Large speculators and traders increased their bets for the S&P500 stock futures markets last week and turned net bullish after registering the first bearish net position since September the previous 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 S&P500 futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 1,289 contracts in the data reported through February 14th. This was a weekly gain of 2,977 contracts from the previous week which had a total of -1,688 net contracts.
Speculators had cut their bets for the S&P500 futures for the previous eight weeks in a row and into net bearish territory for the first time since September 13th before last week’s turnaround.
S&P500 Commercial Positions:
Meanwhile, 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 -3,708 contracts last week. This was a weekly gain of 1,191 contracts from the total net of -4,899 contracts reported the previous week.
S&P500 Stock Market Index:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the S&P500 index closed at approximately 2,337.58 which was a change of 44.50 from the previous close of 2,293.08, according to market data.