> Okay, so this is telling us that *commodity funds* received
> $60bn in net inflows. They used that money to buy commodities
> contracts, I'm assuming. That made them buyers. But who sold
> them the commodities contracts? Sellers, of course.
Yes, but who are the sellers?
Some of them are speculators, who will indeed cancel the buyers out.
But: some of them are hedgers with the actual commodity to sell. And as the price goes up, they are happy to sell it forward for the better price than they would have had if they didn't participate in the futures market.
So it's a bit more complex than you say.
---
I have to correct something key in this thread: when a trade occurs, it is true that the buyer and the seller are exchanging an equal amount. But: in the moment just before the trade, there was a gap between what the "best bid" is willing to pay and the "best ask" was willing to accept. At the moment of the trade, one of them blinked. Either the buyer was willing to buy-up; or the seller was willing to sell-down. So while it's true that the price was "the same" -- the expectation was not.
/jordan