Gold Speculators Cut Back On Bullish Positions This Past Week

Gold COT Futures Large Traders Positions

Gold Non-Commercial Speculator Positions:

Large precious metals speculators cut back on their bullish net positions in the Gold futures markets this 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 Gold futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 270,920 contracts in the data reported through Tuesday December 10th. This was a weekly fall of -19,785 net contracts from the previous week which had a total of 290,705 net contracts.

The week’s net position was the result of the gross bullish position (longs) declining by -17,356 contracts (to a weekly total of 329,169 contracts) while the gross bearish position (shorts) rose by 2,429 contracts for the week (to a total of 58,249 contracts).

Gold bullish bets dropped for the third time in the past five weeks this week. The decline this week marked the largest shortfall in the past eight weeks. Despite the recent pullbacks, the gold position has remained in a strong bullish position as the speculative position has been above the +250,000 net contract level for the past twenty-one weeks and above the +200,000 net contract level for the past twenty-six weeks.

Gold Commercial Positions

The commercial traders position, hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes, totaled a net position of -302,283 contracts on the week. This was a weekly increase of 20,504 contracts from the total net of -322,787 contracts reported the previous week.

Gold COT Futures Large Traders Positions

Gold Futures

Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the Gold Futures (Front Month) closed at approximately $1468.10 which was a drop of $-16.30 from the previous close of $1484.40, according to unofficial market data.

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