Silver Non-Commercial Speculator Positions:
Large metals speculators increased their bullish net positions in the Silver futures markets this 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 Silver futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 17,453 contracts in the data reported through Tuesday May 29th. This was a weekly advance of 2,228 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 15,225 net contracts.
Speculative positions have now risen for four straight weeks and have been in positive territory for three straight weeks. Over the past few months, silver bets had seen their first declines into bearish positioning since 2003 but have now bounced back to the highest bullish level since January 30th.
Silver Commercial Positions:
The commercial traders position, hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes, totaled a net position of -35,297 contracts on the week. This was a weekly decline of -3,874 contracts from the total net of -31,423 contracts reported the previous week.
iShares Silver (NYSE:SLV) ETF:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the SLV ishares ETF, which tracks the price of silver, closed at approximately $15.44 which was a decrease of $-0.14 from the previous close of $15.58, according to unofficial market data.