Traders have turned bearish on the commodity market, amidst concerns over deceleration in Chinese economic growth and US oil production. According to the CFTC Commitments of Traders report for the week ended August 21, traders trimmed speculative long positions of crude oil futures by -13 183 contracts. Meanwhile, they increased shorts by +21 460 contracts, resulting in a decline of NET LENGTH, by -34 643 contracts, to 538 785 contracts. Traders reduced bets on both sides for both heating oil and gasoline futures. for the former, Net LENGTH fell -2 058 contracts to 35 310. The decrease in long positions (-2 881 contracts) more than tripled the decline in shorts (-2 058 contracts). Speculative long positions for gasoline plunged -10 007 contracts while shorts fell -6 779, resulting in a decline of -3 228 contracts in NET LENGTH for the week. Net SHORT for natural gas fell further, by -14 548 contracts, to 61 665 contracts for the week. Traders increased bets for price increase while bets for further price fall were reduced remarkable.
On the precious metal complex, gold and silver futures stayed in NET SHORTS for a second consecutive week, as traders expected prices to weaken further. NET SHORT for for the former rose +5 022 contracts to 8 710, while that for the latter increased to 7 158 contract. For PGMs, NET SHORT of platinum added +810 contracts to 10 992 while NET LENGTH for palladium was down -1 029 contracts to 982.
