Recently, hawkish Fed officials have repeatedly called for a faster pace of interest rate increases and to start shrinking the balance sheet as soon as possible to curb rapidly rising inflation. The expectation that the Federal Reserve will actively raise interest rates and shrink the table will support the dollar index to continue to rise, breaking the 100 mark in intraday trading, reaching a new high since May 2020. The sharp rise of the dollar index has suppressed the price of gold and silver to a certain extent, but tensions between Russia and Ukraine have escalated again. Safe-haven demand supports gold prices, and precious metal prices show a trend of strong volatility. However, speculators' bearish sentiment on gold has risen sharply, sending net long positions in COMEX futures to a new low in more than a month. In the week ended April 5, COMEX gold non-commercial short positions increased by 8993 to 79029, non-commercial long positions decreased by 3062 to 324570, and non-commercial net long positions decreased by 12055 contracts to 245541, according to CFTC. The following picture shows the performance of COMEX gold futures fund's net position and futures market since 2021:
The following is a summary of the changes in the net positions of COMEX fund positions published by CFTC since January 2021:
