10-Year Note Speculators Reduced Bearish Bets

10-Year Note Non-Commercial Speculator Positions:

Large bond speculators cut back on their bearish net positions in the 10-Year Note futures markets this week, according to the latest Commitment of Traders (COT) data released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Friday.

The non-commercial futures contracts of 10-Year Note futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of -287,921 contracts in the data reported through Tuesday, April 30th. This was a weekly change of 35,870 net contracts from the previous week which had a total of -323,791 net contracts.

The week’s net position was the result of the gross bullish position (longs) growing by 3,747 contracts to a weekly total of 589,086 contracts in addition to the gross bearish position (shorts) which declined by -32,123 contracts for the week to a total of 877,007 contracts.

The net speculative bearish position had risen for five straight weeks prior to this week’s pull back. The overall speculator sentiment has now been in bearish territory for seventy-two consecutive weeks dating back to December of 2017.

Despite the recent bearish streak, the speculator positioning still remains a long way from the bearish levels of the August-to-October 2018 period which notched negative positions of more than -700,000 contracts (chart below).

10-Year Note Commercial Positions:

The commercial traders' position, hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes, totaled a net position of 249,014 contracts on the week. This was a weekly drop of -62,587 contracts from the total net of 311,601 contracts reported the previous week.

10-Year Note Futures:

Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the 10-Year Note Futures (Front Month) closed at approximately $123.66 which was a rise of $0.54 from the previous close of $123.12, according to unofficial market data.