According to the CFTC Commitments of Traders report for the week ended October 23, NET LENGTH for crude oil, heating oil and gasoline futures all continued to drop. Oil prices dived during the reporting week, with the front-month WTI crude oil contract sinking -7.63% while the Brent contract was down -6.1%. Speculative long positions of crude oil futures declined -29 011 contracts, while shorts rose +8 940 contracts, resulting in a fall in NET LENGTH, by -37 951 contracts, to 455 278 contracts. For refined oil products, Net LENGTH for heating oil futures plunged -5 538 contracts to 37 847, while that for gasoline was down -7 587 contracts to 92 205. During the reporting week, correction of prices of refined oil products was remarkable. the front-month RBOB gasoline contract plunged -7.11% while the heating oil contract dropped -3.92%. Net SHORT for natural gas increased +8 659 contracts, to 13 193 contracts for the week.
On the precious metal complex, NEW LENGTH for gold futures increased while silver futures stayed in NET SHORT. Speculative long positions for the former gained +3 378 contracts, while shorts sank -8 343, resulting in a NET LENGTH 29 388 contracts. The benchmark Comex contract climbed +0.5% during the week in concern. For the latter, speculative long positions added +2 813 contracts while shorts plunged -6 835, trimming NET SHORT, by -9 648 contracts, to 5 179 contracts. For PGMs, NET LENGTH of Nymex platinum futures dropped -1 418 contracts to 11 662 while that for palladium gained +1 725 contracts to 13 251.
