WTI Crude Oil Non-Commercial Positions:
Large speculators sharply raised their bullish net positions in the WTI crude oil futures markets last week, according to the latest Commitment of Traders (COT) data released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Friday.
The non-commercial contracts of WTI crude futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 372,989 contracts in the data reported through May 23rd. This was a weekly rise of 44,037 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 328,952 net contracts.
The weekly gain of over 44,000 contracts marked the largest one week increase since December 13th 2016 when weekly positions rose by +45,141 contracts.
WTI Crude Oil 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 -368,551 contracts last week. This was a weekly decline of -35,044 contracts from the total net of -333,507 contracts reported the previous week.
USO (NYSE:USO) Crude Oil ETF:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the USO Crude Oil ETF, which tracks the price of WTI crude oil, closed at approximately $10.64 which was an advance of $0.53 from the previous close of $10.11, according to ETF market data.