WTI Crude Oil Non-Commercial Positions:
Large speculators and traders raised their net positions in the WTI crude oil futures markets last week following six straight weeks of decline, 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 287,881 contracts in the data reported through November 29th. This was a weekly gain of 11,561 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 276,320 net contracts.
The positive data for crude last week was the first rise in speculative positions in seven weeks and was recorded before OPEC agreed to a limit in production later in the week which could potentially push positions even higher next week.
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 -304,685 contracts last week. This is a weekly fall of -22,756 contracts from the total net of -281,929 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 $10.06 which was a decline of $-0.57 from the previous close of $10.63, according to market data from Yahoo Finance.
*COT Report: The COT data, released weekly to the public each Friday, is updated through the previous Tuesday (data is 3 days old) and shows a quick view of how large speculators or non-commercials (for-profit traders) as well as the commercial traders (hedgers & traders for business purposes) were positioned in the futures markets. The CFTC categorizes trader positions according to commercial hedgers (traders who use futures contracts for hedging as part of the business), non-commercials (large traders who speculate to realize trading profits) and nonreportable traders (usually small traders/speculators).