Weekly Large Trader COT Report: WTI Crude Oil
CFTC COT data shows speculator’s pushed oil bets higher last week
WTI Crude Oil Non-Commercial Positions:
Futures market traders and large oil speculators increased their overall bullish bets in WTI oil futures last week for the first time in six weeks, according to the latest Commitment of Traders (COT) data released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Friday.
The non-commercial contracts of crude oil futures, traded by large speculators, traders and hedge funds, totaled a net position of +210,511 contracts in the data reported for December 15th. This was a change of +12,637 contracts from the previous week’s total of +197,874 net contracts for the data reported through December 8th.
For the week, the standing non-commercial long positions in oil futures fell by -7,860 contracts but were overcome by a larger decrease in the short positions that dropped by -20,497 contracts to total the overall weekly net change of +12,637 contracts.
WTI Crude Oil Commercial Positions:
In the commercial positions for oil on the week, the commercials (hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes) raised their existing bearish positions to a net total position of -208,139 contracts through December 15th. This is a weekly change of -3,316 contracts from the total net amount of -204,823 contracts on December 8th.
USO Crude Oil ETF:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday December 8th to Tuesday December 15th, the N:USO Oil ETF, which tracks the WTI crude oil price, edged down from $11.68 to $11.40, according to ETF data for the USO United States Oil Fund LP ETF.
*COT Report: The weekly commitment of traders report summarizes the total trader positions for open contracts in the futures trading 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).
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