Forex Speculators Slightly Trimmed USD Bearish Positions This Week
Zachary Storella | Dec 31, 2017 03:05AM 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 of the US dollar this week.
Non-commercial large futures traders, including hedge funds and large speculators, had an overall US dollar net position totaling $-0.458 billion as of Tuesday December 26th, according to the latest data from the CFTC and dollar amount calculations by Reuters. This was a weekly rise of $1.722 billion from the $-2.18 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 at the lowest bearish level since November as bets for the dollar have risen for two straight weeks. The dollar has remained in bearish territory for a twenty-third straight week to end the year of 2017.
Weekly Speculator Contract Changes:
The major currencies that improved against the US dollar this week were the euro (5,924 weekly change in contracts) and the Swiss franc (3,493 contracts).
The currencies whose speculative bets declined this week versus the dollar were the British pound sterling (-7,712 weekly change in contracts), Japanese yen (-1,713 contracts), Canadian dollar (-28,555 contracts), Australian dollar (-979 contracts), New Zealand dollar (-967 contracts) and the Mexican peso (-17,510 contracts).
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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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