NEW YORK: Hedge funds and money managers increased their bullish bets in gold futures and options last week, their first increase in five weeks as bullion prices climbed, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Friday.

The group, also known as managed money, cut their net long position in copper, and trimmed their net short position in silver, the CFTC's Commitments of Traders in the week to June 10 showed.

Gold climbed 2 percent last week as increasing violence in Iraq lifted bullion's safe-haven appeal.

Speculators increased their net long position in gold by 215 contracts to 51,280 lots, the CFTC data showed.

Speculators cut bearish bets on silver by 4,479 to a net short position of 6,123 lots. They trimmed copper net longs by 11,134 lots to 5,107 contracts, a five-week low.

In addition, the group increased bets on platinum by 584 to a net long of 38,506, and decreased palladium longs by 405 to 22,055 contracts.

Traders now await next week's CFTC data, which will likely show sharp declines in the bullish bets on both platinum and palladium as markets awaited confirmation that South Africa's longest mining strike would end soon.