By CountingPips.com
Weekly CFTC Net Speculator Report
CRUDE OIL: Large futures market traders and speculators raised their overall bullish bets in crude oil futures for a fourth straight week and to a new highest level since March 11th last 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, primarily traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of +409,551 contracts in the data reported for April 15th. This was a change of +9,764 contracts for the week. The previous week had registered a total of +399,787 net contracts in the data through April 8th.
The total of +409,551 bullish positions pushes crude oil positions to the highest level since March 11th when total net positions reached +406,832 contracts.
Over the weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday April 8th to Tuesday April 15th, the crude oil price modestly rose from $102.33 to $103.78 per barrel, according to Nymex futures price data from investing.com. Brent crude prices rose from $107.56 to $109.20 per barrel from Tuesday April 8th to Tuesday April 15th, also according to prices from investing.com.
Last 6 Weeks of Large Trader Non-Commercial Positions
| Date | Open Interest | Long Specs | Short Specs | Net Non-Commercials | Weekly Change | Oil Price |
| 03/11/2014 | 1697240 | 511076 | 104244 | 406832 | -18986 | 100.03 |
| 03/18/2014 | 1623266 | 492620 | 108335 | 384285 | -22547 | 98.88 |
| 03/25/2014 | 1604566 | 498080 | 106906 | 391174 | 6889 | 99.19 |
| 04/01/2014 | 1644507 | 502389 | 110606 | 391783 | 609 | 99.61 |
| 04/08/2014 | 1655472 | 512035 | 112248 | 399787 | 8004 | 102.33 |
| 04/15/2014 | 1674276 | 523490 | 113939 | 409551 | 9764 | 103.78 |
*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).
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