WTI Crude Oil Speculators Cut Bullish Net Positions

Weekly Large Trader COT Report: WTI Crude Oil

CFTC COT data shows speculator’s pushed oil bets lower last week

WTI Crude Oil Non-Commercial Positions:

Futures market traders and large oil speculators reduced their overall bullish bets in WTI oil futures last week for a 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 contracts of crude oil futures, traded by large speculators, traders and hedge funds, totaled a net position of +312,585 contracts in the data reported for June 14th. This was a change of -12,597 contracts from the previous week’s total of +325,182 net contracts for the data reported through June 7th.

For the week, the standing non-commercial long positions in oil futures fell by -2,156 contracts and combined with the short positions that rose by +10,441 contracts to total the overall weekly net change of -12,597 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) trimmed their existing bearish positions to a net total position of -317,532 contracts through June 14th. This is a weekly change of +2,630 contracts from the total net amount of -320,162 contracts on June 7th.

United States Oil (NYSE:USO) ETF:

Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday June 7th to Tuesday June 14th, the USO Oil ETF, which tracks the WTI crude oil price, declined from $12.22 to $11.73, 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).