Forex Speculators Push Us Dollar Bets Lower, Down For 6th Week
Zachary Storella | Aug 06, 2017 05:36AM 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 reduce their bets for the US dollar last week.
Non-commercial large futures traders, including hedge funds and large speculators, had an overall US dollar short position totaling $-5.32 billion as of Tuesday August 1st, according to the latest data from the CFTC and dollar amount calculations by Reuters. This was a weekly decline of $-1.4 billion from the $-3.92 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).
US dollar aggregate speculative bets have now fallen for six straight weeks and the overall level is at the most bearish standing since May 10th 2016 when bearish bets totaled -6.19 billion.
Weekly Speculator Contract Changes:
The individual major currencies saw only one weekly change above the 10,000 contract mark this week in the speculators category.
- Canadian dollar positions rose by over +14,000 contracts and gained for a tenth straight week. CAD positions are in bullish territory for a third straight week after crossing over two weeks ago and have risen by over +139,747 contracts in the past ten weeks.
The major currencies that improved against the US dollar last week were the Japanese yen (9,293 weekly change in contracts), Swiss franc (2,990 contracts), Canadian dollar (14,025 contracts), Australian dollar (4,339 contracts), New Zealand dollar (133 contracts) and the Mexican peso (659 contracts).
The currencies whose speculative bets declined last week versus the dollar were the euro (-8,205 weekly change in contracts) and the British pound sterling (-3,255 contracts).
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EuroFX:
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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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