Speculators Slightly Raised Their USD Bearish Positions For 3rd Week
Zachary Storella | Dec 10, 2017 03:43AM 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 this week.
Non-commercial large futures traders, including hedge funds and large speculators, had an overall US dollar net position totaling $-4.28 billion as of Tuesday December 5th, according to the latest data from the CFTC and dollar amount calculations by Reuters. This was a weekly decline of $-0.35 billion from the $-3.93 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 fell for a third straight week and the current aggregate standing is at the most bearish since October 24th when bearish positions were -$8.02 billion.
Weekly Speculator Contract Changes:
This week’s individual major currencies did not see any major moves this week (weekly changes above the + or – 10,000 contract mark) in the speculators category.
The major currencies that improved against the US dollar this week were the euro (3,425 weekly change in net contracts), British pound sterling (1,833 contracts), Swiss franc (617 contracts), Australian dollar (1,446 contracts), New Zealand dollar (1,129 contracts) and the Mexican peso (6,957 contracts).
The currencies whose speculative bets declined this week versus the dollar were the Japanese yen (-3,627 weekly change in net contracts) and the Canadian dollar (-3,192 contracts).
Table of Weekly Commercial Traders and Speculators Levels & Changes:
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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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