Weekly Large Trader COT Report: Gold
Gold speculative positions dropped last week to +13,656 contracts
GOLD Non-Commercial Positions:
Gold speculator and large futures traders reduced their gold bullish positions last week and have now decreased gold bets six out of the last seven 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 gold futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of +13,656 contracts in the data reported through December 15th. This was a weekly change of -5,967 contracts from the previous week’s total of +19,623 net contracts that was registered on December 8th.
The decline in the weekly net speculator positions (-5,967 net contracts) was due to a fall in the weekly bullish positions by -6,830 contracts that overtook a smaller decrease in the weekly bearish positions by -863 contracts.
Gold Commercial Positions:
In the commercial positions for gold on the week, the commercials (hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes) cut back on their overall bearish positions to a net total position of -8,266 contracts through December 15th. This was a weekly change of +5,731 contracts from the total net position of -13,997 contracts on December 8th.
GLD ETF:
Over the weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday December 8th to Tuesday December 15th, the price of the (N:GLD) Gold ETF, which tracks the gold spot price, slid from approximately $102.84 to $101.52, according to ETF price data of the SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD).
*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).
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