Silver Non-Commercial Speculator Positions:
Large metals speculators slightly cut back on their bearish 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 -14,833 contracts in the data reported through Tuesday April 10th. This was a weekly boost of 2,132 contracts from the previous week which had a total of -16,965 net contracts.
Speculative contracts have now been bearish overall for four consecutive weeks after having not seen bearish territory since 2003. Before this week’s slight turnaround, silver contracts had fallen for four weeks in a row and for eight out of the previous nine weeks.
Silver Commercial Positions:
The commercial traders position, hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes, totaled a net position of -4,578 contracts on the week. This was a weekly drop of -1,941 contracts from the total net of -2,637 contracts reported the previous week.
The only traders that are currently bullish on silver are the small traders (also known as the non-reportables). This category of trader has a bullish position of +19,411 net contracts for the current 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 $15.62 which was a rise of $0.16 from the previous close of $15.46, according to unofficial market data.