Gold Non-Commercial Positions:
Large speculators and traders sharply increased their net positions in the gold futures markets last week for a second straight 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 Comex gold futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 163,798 contracts in the data reported through February 28th. This was a weekly change of 40,035 contracts from the previous week which had a total of 123,763 net contracts.
Gold speculative positions are now at their highest level in over three months and jumped last week by the most since June 14th when net positions rose by 51,243 contracts that week.
Gold Commercial Positions:
The commercial traders position, categorized by the CFTC as hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes, totaled a net position of -179,907 contracts last week. This is a weekly change of -40,343 contracts from the total net of -139,564 contracts reported the previous week.
SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE:GLD):
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the GLD (NYSE:GLD) ETF, which tracks the price of gold, closed at approximately $119.23 which was a gain of $1.48 from the previous close of $117.75, according to ETF financial market data.