Hedge Funds and large investors added 3.8% to their long futures
positions as of last Tuesday. Total long positions now stand at 1.3
million lots or 110 billion dollars in nominal terms.
With the attention last week primarily resting on the U.S.
government's attempt to find a solution to the debt ceiling impasse
investors continued to seek security through precious metals. Long
futures positions in silver, platinum and palladium all rose by more
than 10 percent. Gold however saw the biggest nominal increase with 3.3
billion dollars moving into the yellow metal as it continued to make new
record highs.
The second biggest increase was seen in WTI Crude oil with the false
break above USD 100 last Tuesday triggering buying of 15,500 lots. This
also helps to explain why it subsequently suffered losses on Friday as
weak GDP and no news from Capitol Hill led investors to trim their
positions ahead of the weekend.
The other sectors were mixed in the week with summer vacations across
the Northern Hemisphere keeping many decision makers away from their
screens.
Background information: The Commitments of Traders is a report
issued by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission every Friday with
data from the previous Tuesday. It comprises the holdings of
participants in various U.S. futures markets split into "commercial" and
"non commercial" holdings. The non commercial or speculative holding
are typically institutional investors such as hedge funds and CTAs.
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