Silver Speculators cut their bearish bets to lowest level in 17 weeks

December 10th – By CountingPips.com – Receive our weekly COT Reports by Email

Silver Non-Commercial Speculator Positions:

Large precious metals speculators reduced their bearish net positions in the Silver futures markets last week, according to the latest Commitment of Traders (COT) data released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Monday which was a delay due to former President George H.W. Bush’s funeral last week.

The non-commercial futures contracts of Silver futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of -635 contracts in the data reported through Tuesday December 4th. This was a weekly change of 10,331 net contracts from the previous week which had a total of -10,966 net contracts.

This week’s net position was the result of the gross bullish position advancing by 1,501 contracts to a weekly total of 69,314 contracts compared to the gross bearish position which saw a decrease by -8,830 contracts for the week to a total of 69,949 contracts.

The weekly gain of over +10,000 net contracts marked the best week since June and brought the overall net position to the best level since August 7th when the position was last in bullish territory (+4,341 contracts).

Silver Commercial Positions:

The commercial traders position, hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes, totaled a net position of -15,418 contracts on the week. This was a weekly decline of -6,577 contracts from the total net of -8,841 contracts reported the previous week.

Silver Futures:

Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the Silver Futures (Front Month) closed at approximately $1464.00 which was a gain of $41.90 from the previous close of $1422.10, according to unofficial market data.

*COT Report: The COT data, released weekly to the public each Friday, is updated through the most recent 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). Find CFTC criteria here: (http://www.cftc.gov/MarketReports/CommitmentsofTraders/ExplanatoryNotes/index.htm).

Article By CountingPips.com – Receive our weekly COT Reports by Email