WTI Crude Oil Speculators Edged Bullish Bets Higher For 2nd Week
Zachary Storella | May 24, 2020 02:53AM ET
Large energy speculators continued to raise their bullish net positions in the Crude Oil WTI Futures markets this 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 WTI Crude Oil futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 543,603 contracts in the data reported through Tuesday May 19th. This was a weekly gain of 2,584 net contracts from the previous week which had a total of 541,019 net contracts.
The week’s net position was the result of the gross bullish position (longs) lowering by -17,540 contracts (to a weekly total of 692,017 contracts) while the gross bearish position (shorts) fell by a greater amount of -20,124 contracts for the week (to a total of 148,414 contracts).
The crude oil speculative net positions gained for a second straight week and for the sixth time out of the past seven weeks. Speculators have now added a total of +108,495 bullish contracts in just the past seven weeks. These recent gains have kept the overall bullish standing very strong with total bullish positions above the +500,000 net contract level for a sixth consecutive week.
h3 WTI Crude Oil Commercial Positions:/h3The commercial traders' position, hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes, totaled a net position of -574,955 contracts on the week. This was a weekly drop of -16,984 contracts from the total net of -557,971 contracts reported the previous week.
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the WTI Crude Oil Futures (Front Month) closed at approximately $31.96 which was a rise of $6.18 from the previous close of $25.78, according to unofficial market data.
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