According to the CFTC Commitments of Traders report for the week ended November 6, NET LENGTH for crude oil, heating oil and gasoline futures all continued to drop. Oil prices slumped during the reporting week, with the front-month WTI crude oil contract pluning -6% while the Brent contract was down -4.98%. Speculative long positions of crude oil futures declined -11 109 contracts, while shorts soared +17 746 contracts, resulting in a fall in NET LENGTH, by -28 855 contracts, to 403 783 contracts. For refined oil products, Net LENGTH for heating oil futures plunged -5 241 contracts to 28 966, while that for gasoline was down -1 764 contracts to 86 310. During the reporting week, correction of prices of refined oil products deepened. the front-month RBOB gasoline contract declined -3.16 % while the heating oil contract sank -6.2%. Natural gas reverted to NET LENGTH of 5 420 for the week. Expectations that cold weather would boost natural gas consumption sent Nymex futures higher by +11.6%.
Traders turned more bullish on the precious metal complex last week. NET LENGTH for gold futures climbed higher. Speculative long positions added +387 contracts, while shorts sank -5 445, resulting in a NET LENGTH of 19 026 contracts. For silver futures, speculative long positions dropped -2 936 contracts while shorts fell -8 936, reducing NET SHORT, by -6 000 contracts, to 2 470 contracts. For PGMs, NET LENGTH of Nymex platinum futures gained +9 201 contracts to 23 924 while that for palladium gained +1 106 contracts to 13 249.
