Speculators mixed on gold, but buy up silver

Speculators are mixed in their viewpoint for gold, but they are stepping back into the Silver market in the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, according to U.S. government data released late Friday. For the week ended Jan. 10, speculators in the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s weekly commitment of traders report saw their net long positions in silver rise in both the legacy and disaggregated reports. For gold, net long positions fell in the disaggregated report, but rose in the legacy report.

During the timeframe measured, the most-active February Gold futures contract on Comex gained $31 an ounce and settled at $1,631.50 on Jan. 10. Comex March silver rose 24.3 cents an ounce to settle at $29.815. April Nymex Platinum gained $32.10 an ounce to settle at $1,464.60 and March Nymex Palladium fell $28.30 an ounce to settle at $635.20. Comex March Copper slid 1.55 cents a pound to $3.5130.

Commerzbank said the gains in the gold prices aren’t coming from speculators, given the CFTC data and lack of noteworthy inflows from exchange-traded funds.

“The price rise must have been driven by strong physical demand, above all in China…. What is more, sales of U.S. gold coins were highly robust in early January,” the bank said.

Managed-money accounts mildly cut their net-long position to 110,499 contracts, slicing about 100 contracts off the last report.Managed-money accounts cut 1,811 gross longs and 1,716 gross shorts. Producers remain net-short, but cut back on that position by adding gross longs and cutting gross shorts. Swap dealers increased their net short position, having cut gross longs and bumped up gross shorts.

Non-commercials in the legacy report, on the other hand, increased their net-long position, by cutting more gross shorts than longs. They cut 481 gross longs and trimmed 4,131 gross shorts. They are now net-long 139,435 contracts. Commercials are net-short, having added to gross shorts and cut gross longs.

Barclays Capital attributed the rise in the net long position to short covering, and noted that the gross gold positions are at their lowest level since April 2009.

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Posted by Silver Guru on Jan 19 2012. Filed under Silver prices. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry