* Gold longs rise to highest since mid-October
* Copper trims shorts, first bullish change in 6 weeks
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Nov 30 (Reuters) – Hedge funds and money managers raised
bullish bets on gold and silver futures for a third consecutive
week as the U.S. fiscal crisis triggered safe-haven buying,
while they trimmed their short position on copper, data from the
U.S. futures regulator showed.
Speculators increased their net longs in gold by 19,608
contracts to 168,238 in the week to Nov. 27, its highest since
mid-October, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s
Commitments of Traders showed on Friday.
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Analysts said that economic uncertainty over $600 billion
worth of automatic U.S. tax increases and spending cuts in the
new year, referred to as the “fiscal cliff,” have triggered a
flight to quality assets such as gold and silver.
Even though gold could fall in tandem with other perceived
risky assets such as equities and industrial commodities, the
safe-haven metal will likely benefit in the longer run.
Gold rose to a record high at above $1,920 an ounce in
September 2011 following last year’s fiscal crisis and after a
downgrade of the U.S. top-notch credit rating.
Traders said that next week’s CFTC report will likely reveal
more about changes in positioning by speculators after gold
plummeted 1.5 percent on Wednesday in volatile trading related
to worries about the fiscal cliff.
Managed money also raised silver length by 4,011 contracts
to 37,327 lots, the highest since the week ending Oct. 9.
The group also turned slightly bullish, trimming copper
shorts by 1,096 to 1,553 contracts. It was the first bullish
move for copper futures in the last six weeks.
(Reporting by Frank Tang; Editing by James Dalgleish and Tim
Dobbyn)
