Gold Non-Commercial Positions:
Large speculators sharply increased their net positions in the gold futures markets 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 172,666 contracts in the data reported through April 11th. This was a weekly gain of 17,230 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 155,436 net contracts.
Speculators have pushed their gold bets higher by at least +10,000 net contracts in each of the last four weeks and by over +17,000 net contracts in each of the last two weeks.
Gold Commercial Positions:
Meanwhile, 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 -187,364 contracts last week. This is a weekly change of -16,348 contracts from the total net of -171,016 contracts reported the previous week.
Gold ETF (NYSE:GLD):
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the GLD ETF, which tracks the price of gold, closed at approximately $121.19 which was a rise of $1.57 from the previous close of $119.62, according to ETF financial market data.