As we can see at the H4 chart, after breaking the high at 1260.42, the XAU/USD pair continued falling towards 1243.40. This level is very close to the upside border of the post-correctional extension area between the retracements of 138.2% and 161.8% at 1241.86 and 1232.22 respectively, where the next downside targets are located.
At the H1 chart, we can see the divergence, which may indicate a possible reverse or a short-term ascending correction with the targets at the retracements of 23.6%, 38.2%, and 50.0% at 1254.55, 1261.20, and 1266.46 respectively.
USD CHF, “US Dollar vs Swiss Franc”
At the H4 chart, the downtrend was finished after the convergence and the USD/CHF pair started the correction, which has already reached the retracement of 76.0%. The next target may be the current high at 1.0037. After breaking this level, the price may move towards the post-correctional extension area between the retracements of 138.2% and 161.8%. However, one should exclude a possibility that the pair may resume falling to reach the local low at 0.9734 and break it. In this case, the instrument may fall towards another the post-correctional extension area between the retracements of 138.2% and 161.8% at 0.9636 and 0.9580 respectively.
As we can see at the H1 chart, the pair is being corrected and may continue falling towards the retracements of 38.2%, 50.0%, and 61.8% at 0.9883, 0.9854, and 0.9825 respectively.
Attention! Forecasts presented in this section only reflect the author’s private opinion and should not be considered as guidance for trading. RoboForex LP bears no responsibility for trading results based on trading recommendations described in these analytical reviews.
U.S. nonfarm payrolls rose by 228k jobs last month amid broad gains in hiring as the distortions from the recent hurricanes faded, Labor Department data showed on Friday. The government revised data for October to show the economy adding 244k jobs instead of the previously reported 261k positions.
November’s report was the first clean reading since the storms, which also impacted September’s employment data.
Average hourly earnings rose five cents or 0.2% in November after dipping 0.1% the prior month. That lifted the annual increase in wages to 2.5% from 2.3% in October. Workers also put in more hours last month.
The unemployment rate was unchanged at a 17-year low of 4.1% amid a rise in the labor force. The market had forecast payrolls rising by 200k jobs last month.
The fairly upbeat report underscored the economy’s strength and could fuel criticism of efforts by Trump and his fellow Republicans in the U.S. Congress to slash the corporate income tax rate to 20% from 35%. Republicans argue that the proposed tax cut package will boost the economy and allow companies to hire more workers. But with the labor market near full employment and companies reporting difficulties finding qualified workers, the economy does not require the kind of fiscal stimulus. Job openings are near a record high.
The average workweek rose to 34.5 hours in November, the longest in five months, from 34.4 hours in October. Aggregate weekly hours worked surged 0.5% last month after October’s 0.3% gain.
While November’s employment report had no impact on expectations the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates at its December 12-13 policy meeting, it could help shape the debate on monetary policy next year.
The U.S. central bank has increased borrowing costs twice this year and has forecast three rate hikes in 2018.
Employment growth has averaged 174k jobs per month this year, down from the average monthly gain of 187k in 2016. A slowdown in job growth is normal when the labor market nears full employment. The unemployment rate has declined by seven-tenths of a percentage point this year. A broader measure of unemployment, which includes people who want to work but have given up searching and those working part time because they cannot find full-time employment, ticked up to 8.0% last month from a near 11-year low of 7.9% in October.
Shrinking labor market slack is likely to unleash a faster pace of wage growth next year. Higher wages and tax cuts will fuel inflation. Friday’s disappointing U.S. wages data weakened the USD as investors think it could weigh on the pace of interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve next year.
Technical analysis and trading signals:
Bulls are in control after a dragonfly doji formed on Friday’s candlestick line, signaling a rejection of downside. The market failed to register a daily close below 1.1758 on Friday, 50% fibo of the 1.1555 to 1.1960 rise.
We remain long for eventual gains to 1.2155 and think that current levels are still attractive to open long positions.
NZD/USD: Kiwi rises on new RBNZ governor appointment
Macroeconomic overview:
The New Zealand government on Monday named pension fund chief Adrian Orr as the nation’s new central bank governor, sharply lifting the local dollar as markets bet a radical shake-up of monetary policy will be avoided when changes come into force next year. Orr will take up the role at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand on March 27, Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an emailed statement.
Orr will play a crucial role in a key period of the central bank’s history, as the new Labour-led government plans to add maximising employment to the bank’s objectives alongside its inflation target.
Robertson said in the statement that the laws to change the bank’s mandate would likely not be in force by March, but the policy target agreement between him and Orr would be “developed in a manner consistent with the direction of reform.”
Grant Spencer, who was appointed acting governor after Graeme Wheeler stepped down in September at the end of his five-year term, will continue in that role until Orr takes up the top job in 2018.
Technical analysis and trading signals:
The NZD/USD failed to close below December 1 low of 0.6818. The pair broke above short-term moving averages, which may suggest that bearish trend is coming to an end. A key resistance level is 0.6944, high on November 28 and the next one is 0.6979 high on November 9. There is also 23.6% fibo of July-November fall at 0.6965. Breaking above this resistance area would be an important bullish signal.
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The EUR/USD pair is being corrected towards 1.1792. Later, in our opinion, the market may continue falling inside the downtrend to reach the next target at 1.1700 and then form another consolidation range.
GBP USD, “Great Britain Pound vs US Dollar”
The GBP/USD pair is forming another descending impulse. We think, today the price may continue falling towards the local target at 1.3180. After that, the instrument may grow towards 1.3390.
USD CHF, “US Dollar vs Swiss Franc”
The USD/CHF pair is being corrected towards 0.9800. Later, in our opinion, the market may grow towards 0.9990 and then start another consolidation range.
USD JPY, “US Dollar vs Japanese Yen”
The USD/JPY pair is trading to break the upside border of the range to continue forming the third ascending wave towards 114.14. After that, the instrument may start another consolidation range and then grow to reach the local target of the third wave at 114.75.
AUD USD, “Australian Dollar vs US Dollar”
The AUD/USD pair is consolidating near the lows. If later the instrument breaks this range to the downside, the market may continue falling to reach 0.7470; if to the upside – start another correction with the target at 0.7550.
USD RUB, “US Dollar vs Russian Ruble”
The USD/RUB pair is consolidating above 59.09. If later the instrument breaks this range to the upside, the market may continue growing towards 60.05; if to the downside – falling to reach 58.58.
XAU USD, “Gold vs US Dollar”
Gold is still consolidating near the lows. If later the instrument breaks this range to the upside, the market may start another correction towards 1261; if to the downside – continue falling inside the downtrend with the target at 1237.
BRENT
Brent has completed the ascending structure towards 63.80, which may be considered as the first structure of another wave to continue the trend. Possibly, today the price may fall to reach 62.30 and then start forming another ascending structure with the target at 65.30.
Attention! Forecasts presented in this section only reflect the author’s private opinion and should not be considered as guidance for trading. RoboForex LP bears no responsibility for trading results based on trading recommendations described in these analytical reviews.
On Friday the 8th of December, trading on the euro/dollar pair closed slightly down. The euro dropped to 1.1730 ahead of the payrolls report, recovering to 1.1772 after its publication.
The US employment data that came out on Friday wasn’t bad. The US added 228,000 new nonfarm jobs in November against a forecast of 190,000. The reading for September was revised upwards from 18,000 to 38,000, while the October figure was revised downwards from 261,000 to 244,000. The aggregate revision comes to +3,000. US unemployment remains at 4.1%. The workforce participation rate is also unchanged at 62.7%.
The number of new jobs exceeded expectations, but markets couldn’t ignore the weak level of growth or the revision of average hourly wages. The average hourly earnings index in the US came to 0.2% (forecast: 0.3%, previous reading revised from 0% to -0.1%).
The euro’s rise was less down to the NFP and more to do with the growth on the euro/pound cross. The pound shed 0.67% in Friday’s session, with the yen losing 0.32% and the euro 0.03%. The franc and the Kiwi and Aussie dollar closed up.
Day’s news (GMT+3):
10:00 USA: JOLTS job openings (Oct).
Fig 1. EURUSD hourly chart. Source: TradingView
At the time of writing, the euro is trading at 1.1784. The price is currently sitting at the upper boundary of the A-A channel on the 45th degree. The LB balance line (sma 55) runs through 1.1774. Considering the position of the hourly indicators and the lack of economic events today, I’m expecting the euro to drop to 1.1730 (45th degree). For now, I can’t see the euro dropping any further than the 45th degree given that a pin bar has formed on the daily timeframe and the stochastic oscillator is reversing upwards.
Another important point I’d like to draw your attention to is that the TR trend line drawn from 1.1935 has been broken through. I’m ignoring this for the moment because of the A-A channel. If the euro rebounds from the channel’s upper boundary, this will confirm that it was a false breakout.
In theory we could drop as far as 1.1730 or lower. For now the main thing is to get back below 1.1770. Trading in London opens at 11:00 (GMT+3). Hopefully, the euro will open down when trading gets underway. This would keep buyers at bay while increasing the probability of a rebound from the upper boundary of the A-A channel.
The FOMC meeting is on Wednesday. Interest rates are expected to be raised by 25 base points. Congress has reached an agreement to extend federal funding through the 22nd of December. President Trump has already signed the bill.
Learn to Use Sentiment to Time Your Investments Better
In this 14-minute video, you’ll learn how to combine Elliott wave analysis with extremes in market sentiment to reliably anticipate turning points in the markets. EWI Chief Market Analyst Steve Hochberg explains using an example in gold.
This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline Bull/Bear Ratio: Is “More Leverage” Better?. EWI is the world’s largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.
WTO, China and Obama’s trade gambit in the Trump era
By Dan Steinbock
Recently, the Trump administration joined the EU and rejected the view that under the WTO terms China should have graduated last year to market-economy status. Now Trump is using Obama’s accession legacy to undermine world trade.
The accession debacle intensified a year ago, when then president-elect Trump stated categorically in Iowa that “China is not a market economy.”
In the prior months, Trump had pledged to beat back the Trans-Pacific Partnership TPP (which he buried on his inaugural day), undo the North-American Free Trade Agreement NAFTA (whose fifth round of talks ended recently in simmering friction), and impose huge tariffs on China and rewrite the rules of world trade – in which the accession mess could prove a milestone.
However, the credit for the trade ploy to influence the World Trade Organization (WTO) belongs to President Obama.
Toward the end of the post-1945 trading order
Toward the end of his presidency, Obama opened a trade case against China. Officially, litigation was launched at the WTO to target illegal subsidies, which China used to support its aluminum industry, or so the US claimed.
In public, Obama accused China for using low-interest state bank loans, cheap electricity and government subsidies, which would contribute to global overcapacity in aluminum and steel. But in reality, the administration’s move handed over a systemic case to Trump, who pledged to confront China – a case that would be supported by US allies in Europe and Japan, which remained in secular stagnation.
Yet, Machiavellian designs fare poorly at times of rapid, disruptive change. Instead of using the WTO as a strategic hammer against China’s alleged violations, Trump sees world trade organization as a strategic target that should be buried along with the TPP.
The collapse of the TPP and the potential downfall of the NAFTA precipitate new trade conflicts with Mexico and Canada, but also with all economies that have a major trade surplus with the US, including key NATO allies, Germany and Japan.
The MESS mess
The path to potential trade wars was paved over a year ago when the US, the EU and Japan realized that it would soon become harder to blame China for trade violations. Indeed, the key issue in the market-economy status (MES) debacle is the effort of the key WTO members to continue to rely on methods resulting in overstated tariffs against Chinese goods.
When China joined the WTO on December 11, 2001, it was written into the agreement that member states could treat China as a “non-market economy.” Due to the size of its economy, government intervention and state-owned enterprises, advanced economies argued that Chinese domestic price comparisons would be ignored and “constructed values” used to gain a “true picture” of the economy.
For years, those surrogate figures permitted wide discretion and manipulation of price data, which was used as basis for anti-dumping charges; that is, tariffs up to 40% higher than normal anti-dumping duties. In his campaign trail, Trump relied precisely on such figures when he promised he would introduce 45% tariffs against Chinese products.
Indeed, things changed as the deadline began to loom in late 2016. Now it was argued that in the WTO agreement there was an “escape clause.” The latter was conveniently “discovered” a decade and half after the agreement, but only months before its expiration. It would justify advanced economies to continue to treat China as a non-market economy. To them, it was manna from heaven.
WTO’s “reinterpretation”
Of course, the reinterpretation made absolutely no sense in light of the previous US administrations. Until recently, US presidents (Bill Clinton, George W. Bush), US Trade Representatives (Charlene Barshefsky), Secretaries of Commerce (Gary Locke) and key administration figures repeatedly affirmed that the non-MES methodology would expire in due time – by December 12, 2016.
In reality, the change came with the Obama administration in 2012 when the US Trade Representative reversed the official position and affirmed the new reinterpretation, even though such a reinterpretation by the EU was contradicted only months before the 2011 WTO Appellate Body decision.
Why the change?
In Washington, the new approach emerged amid the Obama pivot to Asia, which had been developed by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. While the strategic goal of the pivot was to strengthen the US security alliances in Asia, the economic objective was to contain China’s rise and influence in the region. In this scenario, the reinterpretation of the WTO clause and the use of trade cases served to foster the WTO against China.
Nevertheless, the plant crashed with Trump’s election triumph, his war against the post-1945 trading regime and America’s eroding security and economic alliances.
Quest for trade unipolarity
After the global crisis, China has opted for market-oriented structural reforms. If the size of the public sector is measured on the basis of general government revenue as share of GDP, the Eurozone average (from France’s 56% to Germany’s 45%) remains today far higher than that of the US (44%) and twice as large as that of China (24%).
Indeed, by late 2016 when Washington and Brussels refused China’s market economy status, more than 80 countries had already recognized that status, including BRIC economies, such as Russia and Brazil, but also advanced economies, like Switzerland, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. In contrast, the Obama and Trump administrations’ arguments against China’s MES remain similar to those that were unsuccessfully used against the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
Typically, the key countries that still regard China as a non-market economy feature the US, its NAFTA partners (Canada, Mexico) and security allies (EU, Japan), along with India. But this opposition may be fuelled more by geopolitics than economics.
In particular, the Trump administration’s new stance is very visible at the WTO. As it is preparing for the de facto demise of the post-1945 trading regime, whose main architect was Washington, it has targeted the WTO’s dispute function, deploys greater muscle on its complaints about the appeals process and has resorted to technicalities to block the filling of vacancies on the WTO’s appellate body.
Distressingly, some officials in Geneva see it all as an effort to collapse the WTO’s dispute system, which restrains the kind of unilateral trade action that Trump would prefer. By 2017, the US had defended 130 cases and China nearly 40 before the WTO. Yet, China had applied only 15 times to initiate a dispute before the WTO, whereas the corresponding figure for the US is almost 10 times higher (Figure).
Figure WTO Dispute Settlements: Major Respondents and Initiators
Source: WTO, March 2017
Anything goes
In early December, David Malpass, US Treasury’s undersecretary of international affairs, rebuked China for not being tough enough over North Korea’s nuclear program and for backsliding on market-oriented reforms. He urged China to recognize that the US is looking at “two goals at the same time” in both national security and its trade agenda.
But what does North Korea have to do with China’s market economy status? Pretty much nothing.
As the original WTO accession agreement has been replaced with politically convenient reinterpretations, anything goes. It does not add to credibility that Malpass, who became notorious for his optimistic subprime projections right before international turmoil, is former chief economist of Bear & Stearns whose default contributed to the world crisis in 2008.
It is difficult to avoid the impression that Washington’s WTO “reinterpretation” violates the accession agreement that China signed in good faith. In Beijing, such views are seen as flawed, unfair and wrong. Internationally, they would seem to erode America’s credibility as a responsible international stakeholder.
Left unrestrained, such unipolar actions could pave way to a major global trading crisis as the US Tariff Act did in the 1930s – except that now the consequences of the ensuing global depression would be far worse.
About the Author:
Dr Dan Steinbock is the founder of the Difference Group and has served as the research director at the India, China, and America Institute (USA) and a visiting fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Center (Singapore). For more, see http://www.differencegroup.net/
To the novice trader the ups and downs of the market look fairly undecipherable, but the more you become acquainted with the vicissitudes of the market, the more easily understandable the charts become. Stay around a bit longer, and the time it takes to read the charts gets exponentially faster. For now, we’ll take you through the basics of trading fx to hopefully give you a strong head start.
Japanese Candlesticks
A nice name for a nice chart, the candlestick basically takes the information shown in the bar chart and puts the open / close values in a box. With the high / low being displayed at the end of an attached line, looking like a wick at the top, it is visually reminiscent of a candlestick (or, I suppose, a stick of dynamite).
Japanese Candlesticks are useful for visualizing trend directions simply, so that if a security has increased in value in the course of a period, it is colored green and if it has decreased in value it is red. It is also useful for determining volatility or trying to visualize support and resistance points, as the candlestick will show how often the levels are tested in a more detailed way than other charts.
Periodicity
The other component for setting the chart is the time frame, or periodicity, where the trading platform will provide various intervals. The different options simply reflect the timeframe of each candlestick . Put simply, a five minute chart will show the trading period from open to close over 5 minutes, whilst a minute chart will show the open and close difference over 1 minute.
The periodicity when setting the charts should reflect the trading timeframe of your strategy. For someone that is looking to trade a short term timeframe, the periodicity needs to reflect the short timeframe needed. Same for a longer timeframe. There is limited value in a long term buy and hold trader using a 15 minute chart, as it won’t show the trend to reflect good entry and exit points.
With periodicity, it is often useful to have two different periods in play. The first should be to determine the entry/ exit point of the trade, whilst a second, often longer periodicity, should be used to get a different perspective of the trade, to understand the broader trend.
Chart setup should allow you to undertake your strategy and give you the visual tools to make the best trading decisions.
Going back to our Japanese Candlesticks, let’s take a look at particular trading methods. With their bizarre sounding names of hanging man, hammers, inverted hammers or shooting star, we demonstrate how these strategies can be used to show reversals and how they often comprise the basis of trading entry and exit points.
Shooting Star
This candlestick formation results when a security’s price at some point during its periodicity advances well above its opening price, but then closes lower than the opening price. This formation necessitates an upward trend, where the distance between the highest price for the period and the opening price must be more than twice as long as the shooting star’s body. In contrast, the distance between the lowest price for the period and the closing price must be very small, if not non-existent.
Hanging Man
In contrast to the shooting star, a hanging man, reflects a bearish candlestick formation that will occur at the end of an uptrend. It develops when there is a large sell off shortly after the new period opens, but buyers are quickly able to push this security back up so that it closes not too far off from its opening position. The large sell-off is often seen as an early indication that a bullish trend is waning and further demand for the security is drying up.
Hammers
The hammer is where a price pattern forms when the traded security drops immediately after its opening, but rallies upwards in the period to close either above, or at least near, the opening price. The results is a hammer shaped candlestick, where the body is a good half length longer than the tail or the wick.
A hammer is indicative that a security has been declining and that the market is attempting to determine a new bottom threshold. While the signal doesn’t necessarily indicate that bullish investors have taken full control of a security, it may be indicative that a bullish trend is strengthening.
RSI Indicators
An acronym for Relative Strength Indicator, this momentum indicator compares the magnitude of recent gains and losses over a specific period of time and thereby measures the speed and change of price movements of a particular security. It is commonly used by traders to identify when the market is overbought or oversold for a particular asset.
The RSI is widely used and a popular tool for traders because it provides a quick and easy evaluation of the strength of a security’s price performance, by comparing the up periods to down periods, effectively making it a momentum indicator.
The RSI provides a value that ranges from 0 to 100 which is issued every 14 days. RSI values of 70 or above are indicative that a security is becoming overvalued and overbought, the implication of which means that the asset may be prime for a corrective pullback in price, at which point the market will experience a trend reversal. On the flip side an RSI reading of 30 or below is indicative of an overvalued or oversold security, which will be interpreted that a corrective upward price reversal is likely.
About the Author:
Adinah Brown is a professional writer who has worked in a wide range of industry settings, including corporate industry, government and non-government organizations. Within many of these positions, Adinah has provided skilled marketing and advertising services and is currently the Content Manager at Leverate.
US Dollar Index Non-Commercial Speculator Positions:
Large forex speculators reduced their bearish net positions in the US Dollar Index futures markets this week, according to the latest Commitment of Traders (COT) data released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Friday.
The non-commercial futures contracts of US Dollar Index futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of -8,476 contracts in the data reported through Tuesday December 5th. This was a weekly rise of 2,133 contracts from the previous week which had a total of -10,609 net contracts.
Speculative positions in the US dollar index improved for the first time in four weeks although the net speculative level remains in bearish territory for a fourth straight week.
US Dollar Index Commercial Positions:
The commercial traders position, hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes, totaled a net position of 2,306 contracts on the week. This was a weekly decline of -2,893 contracts from the total net of 5,199 contracts reported the previous week.
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the UUP ETF, which tracks the price of US Dollar Index, closed at approximately $24.29 which was an uptick of $0.03 from the previous close of $24.26, according to unofficial market data.
*COT Report: The COT data, released weekly to the public each Friday, is updated through the most recent Tuesday (data is 3 days old) and shows a quick view of how large speculators or non-commercials (for-profit traders) as well as the commercial traders (hedgers & traders for business purposes) were positioned in the futures 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).
US Dollar net speculator positions leveled at $-4.28 billion as of Tuesday
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. See full article
The non-commercial contracts of WTI crude futures totaled a net position of 611,128 contracts, according to data from this week. This was a lift of 1,295 contracts from the previous weekly total. See full article
The large speculator contracts of gold futures totaled a net position of 173,329 contracts. This was a weekly decline of -51,088 contracts from the previous week. See full article
The large speculator contracts of 10-year treasury note futures totaled a net position of 14,345 contracts. This was a weekly reduction of -109,591 contracts from the previous week. See full article
The large speculator contracts of S&P 500 futures totaled a net position of 1,025 contracts. This was a rise of 733 contracts from the reported data of the previous week. See full article
The non-commercial contracts of silver futures totaled a net position of 31,426 contracts, according to data from this week. This was a weekly fall of -27,356 contracts from the previous totals. See full article
The large speculator contracts of copper futures totaled a net position of 26,653 contracts. This was a weekly shortfall of -17,270 contracts from the data of the previous week. See full article
The Commitment of Traders report data is published in raw form every Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and shows the futures positions of market participants as of the previous Tuesday (data is reported 3 days behind).
US Dollar net speculator positions fell to $-4.28 billion this week
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:
Currency
Net Commercials
Comms Weekly Chg
Net Speculators
Specs Weekly Chg
EuroFx
-124,534
-2,693
93,106
3,425
GBP
-17,094
-3,823
6,406
1,833
JPY
132,028
1,061
-114,267
-3,627
CHF
45,759
-1,689
-29,567
617
CAD
-56,105
5,719
42,466
-3,192
AUD
-33,073
1,926
40,328
1,446
NZD
14,985
-1,216
-12,893
1,129
MXN
-100,623
-7,196
96,523
6,957
This latest COT data is through Tuesday and shows a quick view of how large speculators or non-commercials (for-profit traders) as well as the commercial traders (hedgers & traders for business purposes) were positioned in the futures markets. All currency positions are in direct relation to the US dollar where, for example, a bet for the euro is a bet that the euro will rise versus the dollar while a bet against the euro will be a bet that the dollar will gain versus the euro.
Weekly Charts: Large Trader Weekly Positions vs Price
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.
