Silver Non-Commercial Speculator Positions:
Speculators continued to increase their bullish net positions in the silver futures markets to a six week high this 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 silver futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 33,864 contracts in the data reported through Tuesday August 8th. This was a weekly rise of 3,105 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 30,759 net contracts.
Spec positions have advanced for three straight weeks and gained by over +24,000 contracts in that time period to push the net position to the highest level since June 27th.
Silver 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 -39,561 contracts on the week. This was a weekly uptick of just 106 contracts from the total net of -39,667 contracts reported the previous week.
NYSE:SLV ETF:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the SLV ishares ETF, which tracks the price of silver, closed at approximately $15.56 which was a fall of $-0.23 from the previous close of $15.79, according to unofficial market data.