The latest Commitment of Traders (CoT) report from the ICE platform, released Wednesday morning, indicates that investment funds have continued to increase their net long positions (the difference between long and short positions) for the second consecutive week.

According to market data available as of last Friday, net long positions increased by a further 1.88 million allowances compared with the previous week, bringing the total to 34.7 million allowances, the highest level in a month.

The data also show that speculative traders slightly increased their long positions by 0.38 million allowances, bringing the total to 70.88 million allowances. This marks the first increase since early January. Meanwhile, short positions declined by 1.5 million allowances, reaching the lowest level in seven weeks.

The increase in bullish positioning remains relatively modest, with net long exposure still hovering near levels observed last August and standing at roughly one quarter of the all-time high of around 126 million allowances reached in January.

However, “the shift points to improving confidence after an extended liquidation cycle, even as traders remain attentive to evolving ETS policy signals and macro uncertainty,” according to Quantum Commodity Intelligence.