By CountingPips.com – Receive our weekly COT Reports by Email

Here are this week’s links to the latest Commitment of Traders data changes that were released on Friday.

This week in the COT Report data, precious metals speculators did a u-turn and piled into Gold bullish positions by the largest one-week gain on record. Bets for Silver were also sharply higher. Copper bets, however, continued to see higher levels of bearishness and fell to the most bearish standing since January.

The VIX net speculative bearish position retreated this week after a couple of small moves in the previous weeks. The VIX speculator bets have moved further away from the all-time record high bearish level of -180,359 contracts that was reached on April 30th.

The 10-Year Bond speculators sharply pushed their net short positions higher this week and have been adding to bearish bets for four out of the past five weeks. The speculators, usually reliable trend-followers, have found themselves betting against the recent 10-Year Bond strength (bond prices are inverse of the bond yield and the 10-Year yield ended this week way down at 2.09%).

WTI Crude oil speculators continued to pull back on their bullish bets for a 6th straight week and have now cut positions by a total of -147,191 contracts over this period.

In Currencies, the USD Index Speculator bets dipped slightly this week and continued the recent steady downtrend in spec positions. Euro bets sharply improved this week and the bearish level is now back under the -100,000 net contract level (maybe the worst is over for the Euro?). Japanese Yen bets also saw more improvement and hit the least bearish level in 14 weeks.

The British pound sentiment continued to sour as speculator bets have now increased their bearishness for three straight weeks to the most bearish level since January.

Finally, Mexican peso positions furthered their slide (although remain strongly bullish) after surging to a record high bullish level on April 16th.

US Dollar Index, Peso Speculator bets fell this week. Euro, Yen Shorts were reduced

Large currency speculators reduced their net positions in the US Dollar Index futures markets this week, according to the latest Commitment of Traders (COT) data released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Friday. See full article.

WTI Crude Oil Speculators dropped their bullish bets for 6th straight week

The large speculator contracts of WTI crude futures totaled a net position of 400,168 contracts, according to the latest data this week. This was a change of -38,770 contracts from the previous weekly total. See full article.

10-Year Note Speculators pushed their bearish bets even higher this week

Large speculator contracts of the 10-Year Bond futures totaled a net position of -467,702 contracts, according to the latest data this week. This was a change of -91,529 contracts from the previous weekly total. See full article.

Gold Speculator bets surged higher this week to highest level in a year

Large precious metals speculator contracts of the Gold futures totaled a net position of 156,115 contracts, according to the latest data this week. This was a change of 69,427 contracts from the previous weekly total. See full article.

VIX Speculators pared their short positions further this week

Large stock market volatility speculator contracts of the VIX futures totaled a net position of -85,510 contracts, according to the latest data this week. This was a change of 20,317 contracts from the previous weekly total. See full article.

Silver Speculators sharply reduced their bearish bets

Large precious metals speculator contracts of the silver futures totaled a net position of -8,443 contracts, according to the latest data this week. This was a change of 13,966 contracts from the previous weekly total. See full article.

Copper Speculators bets fall for 7th Straight Week to lowest level since January

Metals speculator contracts of the copper futures totaled a net position of -26,746 contracts, according to the latest data this week. This was a change of -2,913 contracts from the previous weekly total. See full article.

Article By CountingPips.com – Receive our weekly COT Reports by Email

*COT Report: The COT data, released weekly to the public each Friday, is updated through the most recent Tuesday (data is 3 days old) and shows a quick view of how large speculators or non-commercials (for-profit traders) 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).

Find CFTC criteria here: (http://www.cftc.gov/MarketReports/CommitmentsofTraders/ExplanatoryNotes/index.htm).