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S&P500 Non-Commercial Positions:
Large speculators and traders continued to lighten up on their bullish net positions in the S&P500 stock futures markets last week for a seventh 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&P500 futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 1,000 contracts in the data reported through January 31st. This was a weekly decrease of -696 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 1,696 net contracts.
Speculators have been slowing decreasing their bullish positions each week since the middle of December and now have their lowest bullish net position since September 20th.
Small traders (or non-reportables), meanwhile, have picked up the buying slack with specs and commercials (see below) both net selling. Small traders have been overall long for the past seven weeks with a total long position of 10,885 net contracts and a weekly rise of 4,660 contracts last week.
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S&P500 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 -11,885 contracts last week. This is a weekly change of -3,964 contracts from the total net of -7,921 contracts reported the previous week.
S&P500 Stock Market Index:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the S&P500 index closed at approximately 2,278.87 which was a slide of -1.20 from the previous close of 2,280.07, according to 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
