Silver Non-Commercial Speculator Positions:
Large speculator bets rebounded this week in the Silver futures markets following six straight weeks of decline, 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 Silver futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 19,417 contracts in the data reported through Tuesday July 25th. This was a weekly lift of 10,041 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 9,376 net contracts.
Silver bets had fallen below the +10,000 net contract level for the first time since August 4th of 2015 before this week’s turnaround.
Silver 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 -29,532 contracts on the week. This was a weekly loss of -7,618 contracts from the total net of -21,914 contracts reported the previous week.
SLV ETF:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the iShares Silver ETF (NYSE:SLV), which tracks the price of silver, closed at approximately $15.59 which was an advance of $0.21 from the previous close of $15.38, according to unofficial market data.