Silver Non-Commercial Positions:
Large speculators continued to raise their net bullish positions in the silver futures markets last week for an eighth consecutive 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 Comex silver futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 88,017 contracts in the data reported through February 21st. This was a weekly gain of 3,205 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 84,812 net contracts.
Speculative silver positions have now advanced to the highest level since September 6th when the net bullish positions stood at 88,028 contracts.
Silver Commercial Positions:
Meanwhile, the commercial traders position, categorized by the CFTC as hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes, raised their bearish positions to a net position of -102,233 contracts last week. This is a weekly change of -3,206 contracts from the total net of -99,027 contracts reported the previous week.
Silver ETF (NYSE:SLV):
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the SLV ishares ETF, which tracks the price of silver, closed at approximately $17.03 which was just a bit higher by $0.02 from the previous close of $17.01, according to ETF financial market data.