Silver Non-Commercial Speculator Positions:
Large precious metals speculators decreased 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 29,081 contracts in the data reported through Tuesday January 23rd. This was a weekly reduction of -8,131 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 37,212 net contracts.
The speculative position has now fallen for a second week after seeing strong gains over the previous three weeks. The current net level is under the +30,000 contract level for the first time in three weeks.
Silver Commercial Positions:
The commercial traders position, hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes, totaled a net position of -41,497 contracts on the week. This was a weekly gain of 8,646 contracts from the total net of -50,143 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 $16.08 which was a loss of $-0.17 from the previous close of $16.25, according to unofficial market data.