Crude Oil Speculators Trim Bets To 5-Weeks Lows
Zachary Storella | Jul 14, 2014 01:30AM ET
Weekly CFTC Net Speculator Crude Oil Report
Crude Oil: Large futures market traders and speculators decreased their overall bullish bets in crude oil futures last week for a second consecutive week and to the lowest level in 5 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, primarily traded by large speculators and hedge funds, declined to a total net position of +424,887 contracts in the data reported for July 8th. This was a change of -20,953 contracts from the previous week’s total of +445,840 net contracts for the data reported through July 1st.
For the week, standing long positions decreased by 21,281 contracts while short positions also fell by just 328 contracts to show an overall weekly net change of -20,953 contracts. Non-commercial positions are now at the lowest level since June 10th when net positions equaled +418,011 contracts.
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday July 1st to Tuesday July 8th, the crude oil price dipped from $105.34 to $103.40 per barrel, according to Nymex futures price data from investing.com. Brent crude prices, meanwhile, also showed a decline from $112.29 to $108.94 per barrel from Tuesday July 1st to Tuesday July 8th, according to prices from investing.com.
Disclaimer: 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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