Silver Non-Commercial Speculator Positions:
Large speculators lowered their net positions in the Silver futures markets for a third straight 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 59,179 contracts in the data reported through Tuesday October 3rd. This was a weekly decrease of -1,081 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 60,260 net contracts.
Speculative positions have now fallen below the +60,000 net contracts for the first time in five weeks after declining by a total of -15,808 contracts over the past three weeks.
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 -68,717 contracts on the week. This was a weekly increase of 3,549 contracts from the total net of -72,266 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 $15.71 which was a decline of $-0.20 from the previous close of $15.91, according to unofficial market data.