S&P500 Non-Commercial Positions:
Large speculators and traders reduced their bullish net positions in the S&P500 stock 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 futures contracts of S&P500 futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 7,382 contracts in the data reported through April 4th. This was a weekly decline of -4,988 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 12,370 net contracts.
Large speculative positions had been on a seven week roll that had pushed bullish net positions to the highest level since mid-December before last week’s shortfall. Last week’s decline (-4,988 contracts) marks the largest one week fall since December 20th when net positions dropped by -9,065 contracts.
S&P500 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 -18,859 contracts last week. This is a weekly change of 5,222 contracts from the total net of -24,081 contracts reported the previous week.
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the S&P500 index closed at approximately 2360.15 which was a gain of 1.58 from the previous close of 2358.57, 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
