Gold speculative positions edged higher last week
GOLD: Gold speculators and large futures traders advanced their gold bullish bets slightly last week after trimming bullish bets the previous 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 +101,245 contracts in the data reported through April 21st. This was a weekly change of +2,848 contracts from the previous week’s total of +98,397 net contracts that was registered on April 14th.
The increase in the weekly net speculator positions (+2,848 contracts) was due to a small decline in the weekly bullish positions by -174 contracts combined with the weekly bearish positions that fell by -3,022 contracts.
Last week’s rise followed a small decline the previous week and showed that gold speculator bets have gained four out of the last five weeks to back over the +100,000 contracts level.
Over the weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday April 14th to Tuesday April 21st, the gold price advanced from approximately $1,192.60 to $1,203.10 per ounce, according to gold futures price data from investing.com.
Last 6 Weeks of Large Trader Non-Commercial Gold Positions
| Date | Open Interest | Specs Long | Chg Specs Long | Specs Short | Chg Specs Short | Pct OI Specs Long | Pct OI Specs Short | Net Specs | Weekly Chg |
| 03/17/2015 | 429738 | 162268 | -9553 | 109175 | 19246 | 37.8 | 25.4 | 53093 | -28799 |
| 03/24/2015 | 433767 | 168234 | 5966 | 113953 | 4778 | 38.8 | 26.3 | 54281 | 1188 |
| 03/31/2015 | 387585 | 172818 | 4584 | 92799 | -21154 | 44.6 | 23.9 | 80019 | 25738 |
| 04/07/2015 | 390571 | 183130 | 10312 | 82373 | -10426 | 46.9 | 21.1 | 100757 | 20738 |
| 04/14/2015 | 395089 | 184741 | 1611 | 86344 | 3971 | 46.8 | 21.9 | 98397 | -2360 |
| 04/21/2015 | 397379 | 184567 | -174 | 83322 | -3022 | 46.4 | 21 | 101245 | 2848 |
*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).