COT: Oil and gold bought ahead of Mideast flare-up

Hedge funds interest for commodities have recovered strongly since August when the net-long across 24 futures contracts hit a record low of just 38k futures lots. It was the resumption of talks between China and the US, that led to the December phase one deal, which helped support renewed buying interest. Not least across the agriculture sector where the net has swung from a 607k lots short in August to 247k lots long currently.

Buying interest was concentrated in crude oil, gold, soybeans and wheat. The soft sector ran into profit taking after coffee and sugar gave back some of their early December gains. 

Hedge funds maintained buying interest in crude oil ahead of year end. This following the December 6 decision by the OPEC+ group to cut production further throughout Q1. During this time the combined net long in Brent and WTI has risen by 44% to 694k lots or 694 million barrels. This was the biggest bet on a continued rise in oil prices since last April. Given its role as the global benchmark, Brent continues to see the biggest interest from funds taking advantage of the elevated roll yield (backwardation) achieved through holding and rolling a long position.

It will now be interesting to see how investors reacted to the latest rally which has been driven by fear of Middle East supply disruptions. The next update covering the week to January 7 will be released by the CFTC this Friday after the close. 

Funds increased long positions across all five metals tracked in this report. This in response to the rally seen in both precious and industrial metals throughout December. Gold (+20k lots) finally broke higher following months of sideways trading. That rally supported renewed buying in silver (+6k) and platinum (+6k) with the latter reaching a record long of 48k lots. The geopolitical bid lifting gold this week has seen platinum fall behind with its discount to gold rising by $50 to $600 currently.

Copper meanwhile saw a modest 851 lots being added after the trade deal rally faded.