For the fourth week in a row hedge funds and large investors scaled back their commodity futures exposure. As of last Tuesday they had reduced exposure by 0.5% to 1,597,000 lots or $129.5 billion nominal. This small reduction hides relative large changes within the sectors.
Energy:
An increase of 10k lots primarily came from investors reducing their natural gas short positions amid increase demand due to reduced nuclear output. The WTI crude position rose to a new record of 302k lots or $34.4 billion.
Metals:
With silver reaching $50, hedge funds and large investors decided to take profit with the silver longs plummeting by 26% to 25k, the smallest position since February 2010. The margin to hold futures position was raised twice last week which would also have made an impact.
Grains:
Investors added 15k lots in a week that saw big weather related rallies in both corn and wheat while the soybean complex saw a reduction amid reduced Chinese demand for especially soybean oil.
Softs:
Sugar length continued to be scaled back with the price having been under some considerable pressure over the last couple of months. Coffee held steady despite seeing the price reach above $3 for the first time in decades.
Background information: The Commitments of Traders is a report issued by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission every Friday with data from the previous Tuesday. It comprises the holdings of participants in various U.S. futures markets split into "commercial" and "non commercial" holdings. The non commercial or speculative holdings are typically institutional investors such as hedge funds and CTAs. The above chart tracks a total of 27 different commodities split into sectors.