By CountingPips.com | Weekly CFTC Net Speculator Gold Report
Gold positions fall for fourth week to +126,171 large speculator contracts
GOLD: Gold speculators and large futures traders decreased their gold bullish bets last week as the net long positions declined for a fourth 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 +126,171 contracts in the data reported through February 24th. This was a weekly change of -5,563 contracts from the previous week’s total of +131,734 net contracts that was registered on February 17th.
The shortfall in the net speculator positions (-5,563 contracts) was due to a decrease in the weekly bullish positions by -3,705 contracts combined with a rise in the weekly bearish positions by 1,858 contracts.
The net speculator position shortfall last week follows two weeks of strong declines of more than a 20,000 contracts. The overall gold speculator positions are now at the lowest level since January 6th when net positions totaled +122,178 contracts.
Over the weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday February 17th to Tuesday February 24th, the gold price edged lower to decrease for a fourth week from approximately $1,208.60 to $1,204.70 per ounce, according to gold futures price data from investing.com.
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Last 6 Weeks of Large Trader Non-Commercial Gold Positions
| Date | Open Interest | Long Specs | Short Specs | Net Non-Commercials | Weekly Change | Gold Price |
| 01/20/2015 | 430128 | 223257 | 60802 | 162455 | 32229 | 1294.20 |
| 01/27/2015 | 438279 | 238407 | 49482 | 188925 | 26470 | 1292.90 |
| 02/03/2015 | 419524 | 229006 | 43991 | 185015 | -3910 | 1260.30 |
| 02/10/2015 | 393232 | 199036 | 43762 | 155274 | -29741 | 1232.20 |
| 02/17/2015 | 389530 | 188121 | 56387 | 131734 | -23540 | 1208.60 |
| 02/24/2015 | 399307 | 184416 | 58245 | 126171 | -5563 | 1204.70 |
*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). Find CFTC criteria here: (http://www.cftc.gov/MarketReports/CommitmentsofTraders/ExplanatoryNotes/index.htm).
Article by CountingPips.com – Forex Trading Apps
