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S&P500 Mini Non-Commercial Speculator Positions:

Large stock market speculators raised their bullish net positions in the S&P500 Mini 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 futures contracts of S&P500 Mini futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 5,474 contracts in the data reported through Tuesday September 24th. This was a weekly lift of 17,178 net contracts from the previous week which had a total of -11,704 net contracts.

The week’s net position was the result of the gross bullish position (longs) falling by -24,620 contracts (to a weekly total of 332,525 contracts) while the gross bearish position (shorts) decreased by an even greater amount of -41,798 contracts for the week (to a total of 327,051 contracts).

Speculators raised their long bets for a second consecutive week and pushed into a new overall bullish position. The speculative standing had previously fallen into a net bearish level on September 10th and remained there on September 17th before climbing back out last week.

S&P500 Mini Commercial Positions:

The commercial traders position, hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes, totaled a net position of -153 contracts on the week. This was a weekly rise of 45,078 contracts from the total net of -45,231 contracts reported the previous week.

S&P500 Mini Futures:

Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the S&P500 Mini Futures (Front Month) closed at approximately $2970.25 which was a decline of $-37.75 from the previous close of $3008.0, according to unofficial market data.

*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) 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).

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

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