According to the CFTC Commitments of Traders report for the week ended December 11, NET LENGTH for crude oil futures continued to fall. Speculative long positions of crude oil futures slipped -708 contracts, while shorts jumped +19 932 contracts, resulting in a fall in NET LENGTH, by -20 640 contracts, to 309 506 contracts. Both crude oil benchmarks remained under pressure during the reporting week. The front-month WTI contract fell -3% while the Brent contract was down -3.03%. For refined oil products, NET SHORT for heating oil trimmed, by -1 315 contracts, to 3 939 contracts for the week. Bets on both sides dropped. NET LENGTH for gasoline gained +4 119 contracts to 77 138. The front-month Nymex contract for heating oil dived -5.24% while RBOB gasoline dropped -5.02%. NET LENGTH for natural gas futures gained +2 842 contracts, to 22 884 contracts for the week. Yet, bets for longs and shorts fell for the week. The Nymex contract slipped -1.12% for the week.
On the precious metal complex, bets for gold futures were trimmed on both the long and short sides. Speculative long positions slipped -3 419 contracts, while shorts dived -14 917, resulting in an increase in NET LENGTH, by +11 498 contracts, to 60 499 contracts. The benchmark Comex contract added +0.06% during the week in concern. For silver futures, speculative long positions added +1 822 contracts while shorts plunged -10 069. These resulted in a rise in NET LENGTH, by +11 891 contracts, to 11 256 contracts. For PGMs, NET LENGTH of Nymex platinum futures dropped -3 635 contracts to 10 991 while that for palladium slid -726 contracts to 14 245.
