Gold Non-Commercial Positions:
Large speculators and traders edged their net positions in the gold futures markets higher last 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 Comex gold futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 109,407 contracts in the data reported through January 24th. This was a weekly change of 2,366 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 107,041 net contracts.
Speculative bets in gold managed the second rise out of the last three weeks, perhaps suggesting that a short term bottom or finding of speculative support after a sharp decline over the past few months. Positions had fallen from 217,238 contracts on November 8th to 96,550 contracts on January 3rd before rising back over +100,000 speculative contracts.
Gold Commercial Positions:
Free Reports:
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 -126,374 contracts last week. This is a weekly change of -3,263 contracts from the total net of -123,111 contracts reported the previous week.
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the GLD ETF, which tracks the price of gold, closed at approximately $115.27 which was a decline of $-0.58 from the previous close of $115.85, according to ETF financial market data.
*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). Find CFTC criteria here: (http://www.cftc.gov/MarketReports/CommitmentsofTraders/ExplanatoryNotes/index.htm).
Article by CountingPips.com
