By CountingPips.com – Weekly CFTC Net Speculator Crude Oil Report
Oil Speculators overall long positions continue decline as WTI & Brent Oil prices fall
CRUDE OIL: Futures market traders and large speculators continued to lower their overall bullish bets in crude oil futures last week as positions fell lower for a fifteenth consecutive 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 crude oil futures, traded by large speculators, traders and hedge funds, declined to a total net position of +293,683 contracts in the data reported for October 7th. This was a change of -2,263 contracts from the previous week’s total of +295,946 net contracts for the data reported through September 30th.
For the week, standing non-commercial long positions in oil futures gained by a total of 8,953 contracts while the short positions advanced by 11,216 contracts to total the overall weekly net change of -2,263 contracts.
The non-commercial trader’s net position maintains the lowest standing since July 2nd 2013 when the overall net positions recorded a total of +289,595 contracts.
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday September 30th to Tuesday October 7th, the WTI crude oil price dropped from $91.16 to $88.85 per barrel, according to Nymex futures price data from investing.com. Brent crude prices, meanwhile, also declined from $94.67 to $92.11 per barrel from Tuesday September 30th to Tuesday October 7th, according to price data from investing.com.
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Last 6 Weeks of Large Trader Non-Commercial Positions
| Date | Open Interest | Long Specs | Short Specs | Net Non-Commercials | Weekly Change | Oil Price | Brent Price |
| 09/02/2014 | 1559353 | 421058 | 118494 | 302564 | -15163 | 92.88 | 100.34 |
| 09/09/2014 | 1553516 | 426580 | 126598 | 299982 | -2582 | 92.75 | 99.16 |
| 09/16/2014 | 1528614 | 434417 | 137136 | 297281 | -2701 | 93.81 | 99.05 |
| 09/23/2014 | 1480629 | 423239 | 127187 | 296052 | -1229 | 91.56 | 96.85 |
| 09/30/2014 | 1485856 | 426689 | 130743 | 295946 | -106 | 91.16 | 94.67 |
| 10/07/2014 | 1503764 | 435642 | 141959 | 293683 | -2263 | 88.85 | 92.11 |
*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 News
