Large speculators and traders decreased their net positions in the gold futures markets last week for the fourth consecutive 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 136,380 contracts in the data reported through December 6th. This was a weekly decline of -15,190 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 151,570 net contracts.
Gold speculative positions are now at their lowest level since February 16th when net positions equaled 117,360 contracts.
Gold 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 -154,944 contracts last week. This is a weekly rise of 12,879 contracts from the total net of -167,823 contracts reported the previous week.
Gold ETF vs Specs:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the GLD ETF, which tracks the price of gold, closed at approximately $111.43 which was a fall of $-1.84 from the previous close of $113.27, according to ETF market data from Yahoo Finance.
*COT Report: The COT data, released weekly to the public each Friday, is updated through the previous Tuesday (data is 3 days old) and shows a quick view of how large speculators or non-commercials (for-profit traders) as well as the commercial traders (hedgers & traders for business purposes) were positioned in the futures 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).
