Currency Speculators Continued To Trim US Dollar Bearish Positions For 5th Week
Zachary Storella | May 27, 2018 02:12AM 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 reduced their bearish bets for the US dollar this week.
Non-commercial large futures traders, including hedge funds and large speculators, had an overall US dollar net position totaling $-7.98 billion as of Tuesday May 22nd, according to the latest data from the CFTC and dollar amount calculations by Reuters. This was a weekly rise of $1.84 billion from the $-9.82 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 aggregate speculative position is now at the least bearish level since January 2nd when the position totaled $-4.62 billion. Despite five weeks of declining bearish bets, the US dollar aggregate position has remained in bearish territory for forty-five straight weeks dating back to July 18th of 2017.
Weekly Speculator Contract Changes:
This week saw just one substantial change (+ or – 10,000 contracts) in the individual currency contracts for the speculators category.
Mexican peso speculative bets fell by over -20,000 contracts for a second straight week. Speculator peso bets have overall declined for six consecutive weeks as sentiment has been waning for the peso amid an election season, uncertainty over NAFTA as well as emerging market currency woes. The MXN spec position has now fallen to the lowest level since January 9th when net positions totaled 29,797 contracts.
The individual major currencies that improved against the US dollar this week were just the Australian dollar (1,994 weekly change in contracts) and the British pound sterling (80 contracts).
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The currencies whose speculative bets declined this week versus the dollar were the euro (-5,370 weekly change in contracts), Japanese yen (-6,447 contracts), Swiss franc (-918 contracts), Canadian dollar (-2,556 contracts), New Zealand dollar (-3,316 contracts) and the Mexican peso (-21,238 contracts).
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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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