How closely does the price of gold follow the Commitment of Traders (COT) report?

Here's a pair of Tweets from a person I follow and respect.

Now we know why gold dropped $40oz in just a little over a week -the biggest one-week increase in large speculator futures short contracts (from 72.5K to 106.4K up 47%) that I can ever remember. Good news is they'll have to buy them back as the seasonal strong period gets started

— fred hickey (@htsfhickey) June 22, 2018

The gold decline was 100%+ due to the shorts - there was actually a (smaller) increase in spec long positions

— fred hickey (@htsfhickey) June 22, 2018

Note that COT reports come out on Friday for the following Tuesday. All of the dates in the following table I created are from Tuesday. The price of gold is the closing price on Tuesday. The latest COT report is as of Tuesday, June 19.

Gold Price Vs Cot Positions

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There was a huge increase in the number of large spec shorts as Hickey notes. There was also a big increase from May 8 to May 15. On both occasions the price of gold sank.

However, there was a big decrease in shorts from May 1 to May 8, with the price of gold going nowhere. Also, there was a huge increase in net long positions from June 5 to June 12 and the price of gold fell a bit.

Conclusion: COT analysis alone cannot fully explain large movement (or non-movement) in the price of gold.

I do agree with Hickey that the shorts will add fuel once long accumulation starts.