S&P 500 Futures Non-Commercial Speculator Positions:
Large stock market speculators cut back on their bullish net positions in the S&P 500 Mini futures markets for a third 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 S&P 500 Mini futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 165,239 contracts in the data reported through Tuesday August 7th. This was a weekly fall of -5,063 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 170,302 net contracts.
The speculative bullish position has declined by a total of -17,733 net contracts over the past three weeks after previously rising for six out of the prior seven weeks. The overall net standing has now fallen under the +170,000 net contract level for the first time in the last five weeks.
S&P 500 Mini Commercial Positions:
The commercial traders position, hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes, totaled a net position of -276,704 contracts on the week. This was a weekly increase of 5,461 contracts from the total net of -282,165 contracts reported the previous week.
SPDR S&P 500 (NYSE:SPY):
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the SPY ETF, which tracks the price of S&P 500 Index, closed at approximately $285.58 which was a gain of $4.25 from the previous close of $281.33, according to unofficial market data.