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Commodity Markets
OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report – June 2016
15
Investment flows into commodities
Open interest volume (OIV
) increased in May for select US commodity markets such
as precious metals and copper, while decreasing for agriculture, crude oil, natural gas,
agriculture and livestock. Meanwhile, monthly average speculative net length positions
increased for agriculture, precious metals and livestock, were relatively stable for crude
oil, and declined for natural gas and copper.
Agriculture’s OIV
decreased by 2.2% to 5,083,956 contracts in May. Meanwhile,
money managers increased their net long position by 2.4 times to 523,680 lots, largely
because of increasing net length in corn, the soy complex and sugar for the second
consecutive month.
Table 2.2: CFTC data on non-commercial positions, ‘000 contracts
Henry Hub’s natural gas OIV
increased by 3.2% m-o-m to 1,120,471 contracts in
April. Money managers increased their net short positions by 31% to reach 87,197 lots
on large inventories.
Graph 2.3: Speculative activity in key commodities, net length
Copper’s OIV
increased by 3.3% m-o-m to 198,355 contracts in May. Money
managers switched to a net short position of 15,799 lots as manufacturing prospects in
China slowed.
Precious metals’ OIV
advanced by 10.4% m-o-m to 758,145 contracts in May. Money
managers increased their net long positions by 11.8% to 253,803 lots.
-300
-200
-100
0
100
200
300
400
500
-300
-200
-100
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
May 15
Jun 15
Jul 15
Aug 15
Sep 15
Oct 15
Nov 15
Dec 15
Jan 16
Feb 16
Mar 16
Apr 16
May 16
'000 contracts
'000 contracts
Agriculture
Gold
WTI
Natural gas
Livestocks
Copper
Source: US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Apr 16 May 16
Apr 16
%OIV
May 16
%OIV
Crude oil
1,752
1,708
206
12
210
12
Natural gas
1,120
1,084
-67
-6
-87
-8
Agriculture
5,198
5,084
221
4
524
10
Precious metals
686
758
227
33
254
33
Copper
192
198
2
1
-16
-8
Livestock
553
548
63
11
72
13
Total
9,502
9,380
651
55
956
53
Source: US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Open interest
Net length