Silver Non-Commercial Positions:
Large speculators and traders sharply increased their bullish net positions in the silver futures markets last week following three weeks of declining bets, 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 90,688 contracts in the data reported through March 28th. This was a weekly boost of 11,576 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 79,112 net contracts.
Last week’s gain in bullish bets marked the largest one week rise since June 14th of 2016 when net bullish positions advanced by +12,598 net contracts. The weekly rise also brought total net bullish positions back over the +90,000 contract level for the first time in three weeks.
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 -101,767 contracts last week. This is a weekly change of -8,033 contracts from the total net of -93,734 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 $17.18 which was an increase of $0.57 from the previous close of $16.61, according to ETF financial market data.