From Agrimoney:
Crops lead 'massive' turn to commodities by specs
Agricultural commodities led a "massive" boost in speculative investments on rises in raw material prices, as concerns over dry South American weather prompted a revival in long bets on corn and soybean futures.Speculators raised their net long positions in futures and options over 16 main US-traded commodities by 20.2% in the week to January 3, Standard Chartered said, analysing results from weekly data compiled by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the market regulator.In the agricultural sector, the increase was more than one-half – from net length of 184,891 positions to net length of 279,202 – "largely due to bullish repositioning in corn, sugar and soybeans", StanChart analyst Kuon-Ken Lee said.Australia & New Zealand Bank, which places a slightly broader array of CFTC data categories within the "speculative" camp, said that the net long exposure across agricultural commodity markets soared, in crop weight equivalent, to 13.4m tonnes from 3.64m tonnes the week before....MORE
