Currency Futures Speculators Added USD Bearish Positions For 3rd Week
Zachary Storella | Jan 20, 2018 10:03PM ET
The latest data for the weekly Commitment of Traders (COT) report, released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Friday, showed that large traders and currency speculators continued to bet against the US dollar this week.
Non-commercial large futures traders, including hedge funds and large speculators, had an overall US dollar net position totaling $-9.59 billion as of Tuesday January 16th, according to the latest data from the CFTC and dollar amount calculations by Reuters. This was a weekly decline of $-0.74 billion from the $-8.85 billion total position that was registered the previous week, according to the Reuters calculation (totals of the US dollar contracts against the combined contracts of the euro, British pound, Japanese yen, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar and the Swiss franc).
The US dollar aggregate speculative position has now fallen for three straight weeks to the lowest level since October 17th when the aggregate level registered $-12.65 billion. The dollar bets have now been in an overall bearish level for twenty-seven straight weeks.
Weekly Speculator Contract Changes:
This week saw only one substantial change (+ or – 10,000 contracts) in the individual currency contracts for the speculator category.
The Mexican peso positions gained by over +16,000 bets this week following five straight weeks of declines. The overall peso level remains bullish although the current level of +46,795 contracts is less than half of the most recent high level of +96,523 contracts reached on December 5th.
The major currencies that improved against the US dollar this week were the British pound sterling (712 weekly change in contracts), Japanese yen (6,186 contracts), Swiss franc (816 contracts), Canadian dollar (95 contracts), Australian dollar (4,616 contracts), New Zealand dollar (3,026 contracts) and the Mexican peso (16,998 contracts).
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Meanwhile, the only currency whose speculative bets declined this week versus the dollar was the euro (-5,201 weekly change in contracts).
EuroFX:
British Pound Sterling:
Japanese Yen:
Swiss Franc:
Canadian Dollar:
Australian Dollar:
New Zealand Dollar:
Mexican Peso:
*COT Report: The weekly commitment of traders report summarizes the total trader positions for open contracts in the futures trading markets. The CFTC categorizes trader positions according to commercial hedgers (traders who use futures contracts for hedging as part of the business), non-commercials (large traders who speculate to realize trading profits) and nonreportable traders (usually small traders/speculators). Find CFTC criteria here: (http://www.cftc.gov/MarketReports/CommitmentsofTraders/ExplanatoryNotes/index.htm ).
The Commitment of Traders report is published every Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and shows futures positions data that was reported as of the previous Tuesday (3 days behind).
Each currency contract is a quote for that currency directly against the U.S. dollar, a net short amount of contracts means that more speculators are betting that currency to fall against the dollar and a net long position expect that currency to rise versus the dollar.
(The charts overlay the forex closing price of each Tuesday when COT trader positions are reported for each corresponding spot currency pair.) See more information and explanation on the weekly COT report from the CFTC website.
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