Hedge Funds Exiting Gold once Again

Take a look at the chart and you will see what I meant in choosing the title for this post.

In the last two months alone, the NET LONG position of the hedge fund community has been cut in half. That has come about by a combination of both long liquidation and the addition of new short positions. Currently it is at 71,376.

What is rather disturbing is that the number of outright long positions ( both futures and options combined ) of 129,921, remains rather large compared to the last time gold was trading near these levels in the first week of June of this year.

Back then, hedge funds were holding 121,428 outright long positions when gold was at the $1244 level. Their short holdings were at 70,364 compared to this week's 58,545. That put them at a NET LONG position of 51,064 compared to this week's 71,376. That is a net contract difference of over 20,000 contracts!

That is why it is important that $1240-$1235 did not hold. The potential for additional long side liquidation PLUS net shorting from these technically oriented hedge funds, opens additional downside probabilities. If the funds begin to wash out and also move more towards the short side, the selling pressure would intensify. It would be enough to set up a test of $1200 without some sort of upside catalyst occurring very, very soon.