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Silver Non-Commercial Positions:

Large speculators sharply decreased their net bullish positions in the silver futures markets last week as positions have now fallen for four straight weeks, 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 silver futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 53,655 contracts in the data reported through May 9th. This was a weekly drop of -17,712 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 71,367 net contracts.

Speculative bullish positions are now lower by over -50,000 net contracts over the past four weeks. Speculators had pushed their bullish bets to an all-time record high on April 11th.

Silver 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 -69,269 contracts last week. This was a weekly gain of 17,305 contracts from the total net of -86,574 contracts reported the previous week.

Silver ETF:

Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the SLV ishares ETF, which tracks the price of silver, closed at approximately $15.30 which was a decline of $-0.63 from the previous close of $15.93, according to ETF financial market data.

*COT Report: The weekly commitment of traders report summarizes the total trader positions for open contracts in the futures trading 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