S&P500 Mini Non-Commercial Speculator Positions:
Large stock market speculators lifted their bullish net positions in the S&P500 Mini futures markets 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 S&P500 Mini futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 182,972 contracts in the data reported through Tuesday July 17th. This was a weekly gain of 10,995 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 171,977 net contracts.
The speculative positions have now risen for two straight weeks and for six out of the past seven weeks. The overall net position is back above the +180,000 net contract threshold for the first time in three weeks.
S&P500 Mini Commercial Positions:
The commercial traders position, hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes, totaled a net position of -268,271 contracts on the week. This was a weekly drop of -19,027 contracts from the total net of -249,244 contracts reported the previous week.
SPY (NYSE:SPY) ETF:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the SPY ETF, which tracks the price of S&P500 Index, closed at approximately $280.47 which was a boost of $1.57 from the previous close of $278.9, according to unofficial market data.