Gold Speculators Pushed Their Bets More Bearish This Week

Large precious metals speculators raised their bearish net positions higher 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 -8,710 contracts in the data reported through Tuesday August 21st. This was a weekly decrease of -5,022 contracts from the previous week which had a total of -3,688 net contracts.

Speculative bets for gold have now fallen for six consecutive weeks with the overall standing falling into a bearish net position last week and going further bearish this week. The current speculative level is at the most bearish standing since December 11th of 2001 when the net position totaled -21,717 contracts.

Gold Commercial Positions

The commercial traders’ position, hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes, totaled a net position of -1,685 contracts on the week. This was a weekly increase of 5,665 contracts from the total net of -7,350 contracts reported the previous week.

Gold COT Futures Large Trader Vs GLD ETF

GLD (NYSE:GLD) ETF:

Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the GLD ETF, which tracks the price of gold, closed at approximately $113.02 which was a drop of $-0.05 from the previous close of $113.07, according to unofficial market data.

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