Commodity Futures Trading Commission data confirmed that a dovish Federal Reserve created some renewed buying interest in gold futures among money managers, but it wasn’t enough to build on gold’s recent rally.
The disaggregated Commitments of Trader report, for the week ending March 22, showed money managers increased their speculative gross long positions in Comex gold futures by 15,255 contracts to 174,457. At the same time, short bets rose by only 133 contracts to 29,558. The latest data shows the gold market is net long by 144,899 contracts.
During the survey period, April gold futures rose more than 1% as prices briefly pushed above $1,260 an ounce, but were unable to test the 13-month high seen at earlier in the month.
Analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch noted in a report Monday that gold’s net long positions is in ninety-ninth percentile from its three-year high.
Bart Melek, head of commodity strategy at TD Securities, said that it was encouraging to see that the gains in the gold market were made from investors buying and not just short covering.
“It’s an indication that the market is still hardy,” he said
