WTI Crude Oil Speculators Edged Bullish Positions Lower For 5th Week
Zachary Storella | Nov 20, 2016 12:21AM ET
WTI Crude Oil Non-Commercial Positions:
Large speculators and traders edged their net bullish positions lower for a fifth straight week in the WTI crude oil futures markets last 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 WTI crude futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 276,326 contracts in the data reported through November 15th. This was a weekly change of -1,213 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 277,539 net contracts.
The WTI speculative positions are now under the 300,000 net position for a second straight week and have declined to the lowest overall bullish level since August 9th.
WTI Crude Oil Commercial Positions:
The commercial traders position, categorized by the CFTC as hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes, raised their net position for a third week to a total of -277,574 contracts last week. This is a weekly change of 21,994 contracts from the total net of -299,568 contracts reported the previous week.
USO (NYSE:USO) Crude Oil ETF:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the USO Crude Oil ETF, which tracks the price of WTI crude oil, closed at approximately $10.34 which was a change of $0.24 from the previous close of $10.10, according to 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).
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