According to the CFTC Commitments of Traders report for the week ended November 27 NET LENGTH for crude oil and gasoline futures continued to fall. Speculative long positions of crude oil futures declined -17 170 contracts, while shorts gained +1 896 contracts, resulting in a fall in NET LENGTH, by -19 066 contracts, to 348 121 contracts. Both crude oil benchmarks plunged during the reporting week. The front-month WTI contract fell -3.5% while the Brent contract was down -3.71%. The market remained cautious ahead of the OPEC+ summit on December 6. For refined oil products, heating oil futures drifted to NET SHORT of -2 291, while NET LENGTH for gasoline fell -1 109 contracts to 76 252. The front-month Nymex contract for heating oil dived -5.24% while RBOB gasoline dropped -5.02%. NET LENGTH for natural gas futures gained +4 913 contracts, to 35 173 contracts for the week. Yet, bets for longs and shorts declined markedly. The Nymex contract plunged -5.77% for the week.
On the precious metal complex, bets for gold and silver futures were trimmed on the long and short sides. Speculative long positions for the former slipped -8 727 contracts, while shorts were down -1 702, trimming NET LENGTH, by 7 205 contracts, to 1 871 contracts. The benchmark Comex contract slipped -0.64% during the week in concern. For the latter, speculative long positions dropped -3 833 contracts while shorts plunged -3 595. These resulted in a drop in NET SHORT, by -238 contracts, to 10 966 contracts. For PGMs, NET LENGTH of Nymex platinum futures gained +1 030 contracts to 22 815 while that for palladium added +212 contracts to 14 476.
