Copper Non-Commercial Positions:
Large speculators and traders increased their net positions in the copper futures markets last week following three straight weeks of declines, 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 copper futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 47,703 contracts in the data reported through January 10th. This was a weekly gain of 3,219 contracts from the previous week which had seen a total of 44,484 net contracts.
Speculative positions had been on the defensive for the past three weeks after a huge run-up before the end of the year which took net speculator positions sharply into positive territory and to its highest position in multiple years.
Copper 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 -50,099 contracts last week. This is a weekly fall of -3,156 contracts from the total net of -46,943 contracts reported the previous week.
Copper ETN:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the iPath Bloomberg Copper Subindex Total Return Exp 22 Oct 2037 (NYSE:JJC), which tracks the price of copper, closed at approximately $30.10 which was an advance of $1.58 from the previous close of $28.52, according to market data.