Forex Speculators Raised U.S. Dollar Bullish Positions To 7-Week High
Zachary Storella | Mar 26, 2017 04:22AM 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 increased their bullish bets for the U.S. dollar last week to the highest level in seven weeks.
Non-commercial large futures traders, including hedge funds and large speculators, had an overall U.S. dollar long position totaling $18.44 billion as of Tuesday March 21st, according to the latest data from the CFTC and dollar amount calculations by Reuters. This was a weekly gain of $0.85 billion from the $17.59 billion total long position that was registered the previous week, according to the Reuters calculation (totals of the U.S. dollar contracts against the combined contracts of the euro, British pound, Japanese yen, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar and the Swiss franc).
Bullish speculative bets have now risen for three straight weeks and to the highest level since January 31st when total bullish positions equaled $18.47 billion.
The major currencies that improved against the U.S. dollar last week were the euro (21,365 weekly change in contracts), Japanese yen (4,310 contracts), Australian dollar (1,690 contracts) and the Mexican peso (2,186 contracts).
The currencies whose speculative bets declined last week versus the dollar were the Canadian dollar (-45,861 weekly change in contracts), New Zealand dollar (-7,005 contracts), Australian dollar (1,690 contracts), Swiss franc (-2,982 contracts) and the British pound sterling (-727 contracts).
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*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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