CFTC Weekly Commitment of Traders Report
Gold Non-Commercial Positions:
Large speculators and traders raised their net positions in the gold futures markets for a second consecutive week 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 Comex gold futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 215,131 contracts in the data reported through November 1st. This was a weekly rise of 18,151 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 196,980 net contracts.
Gold 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 -239,251 contracts last week. This is a weekly change of -21,652 contracts from the total net of -217,599 contracts reported the previous week.
Gold ETF:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE:GLD) ETF, which tracks the price of gold, closed at approximately $122.73 which was a gain of $1.26 from the previous close of $121.47, according to ETF market data from Yahoo Finance.
*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 and 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).