Which way were Large Traders and Hedge Funds leaning the previous week in the Futures Market?
By CountingPips.com
The most recent weekly Commitments of Traders (COT) report, released every Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), showed that large futures traders slightly pulled back on their total bullish bets of the US dollar last week for a second consecutive week.
Non-commercial large futures traders, including hedge funds and large International Monetary Market speculators, totaled an overall US dollar long position of $24.49 billion as of Tuesday April 30th. This was a slight decline from the total long position of $24.94 billion on April 23rd, according to position calculations by Reuters that derives this total by the amount of US dollar positions against the total positions of euro, British pound, Japanese yen, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar and the Swiss franc.
Total US dollar long positions have continued to stay between $23.57 billion and $26.3 billion for the last nine weeks, according to the Reuters calculations. US dollar positions had been in an overall bearish position from November 2012 to February 2012 before turning into a bullish position on February 19th when USD bets equaled $1.481 billion.
What is the COT Report:
The weekly cot 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).
Individual Currencies Large Speculators Positions in Futures:
The individual currency net speculator positions last week saw advances for the euro, Japanese yen, British pound sterling, New Zealand dollar and the Canadian dollar while the Swiss franc, Australian dollar and the Mexican peso all had a declining number of net large trader contracts for the week.
Individual Currency Charts: (Please Click on Chart to Enlarge)
EuroFX: Weekly change of +4,126
EuroFX: Large trader positions for the euro improved last week after showing a decline the previous week. Euro contracts increased to a total net position of -30,149 contracts in the data reported for April 30th following the previous week’s total of -34,275 net contracts on April 23rd.
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: EURO
| Date | Lg Trader Net | Change |
| 03/26/2013 | -49095 | -4211 |
| 04/02/2013 | -65701 | -16606 |
| 04/09/2013 | -50858 | 14843 |
| 04/16/2013 | -29764 | 21094 |
| 04/23/2013 | -34275 | -4511 |
| 04/30/2013 | -30149 | 4126 |
British Pound Sterling: Weekly change of +1,505
GBP: British pound spec positions improved last week to advance for a third consecutive week and to the best position since March 12th. British pound speculative positions improved last week to a total of -58,607 net contracts on April 23rd following a total of -60,112 net contracts reported for April 16th.
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Pound Sterling
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 03/26/2013 | -66555 | -5075 |
| 04/02/2013 | -65020 | 1535 |
| 04/09/2013 | -69969 | -4949 |
| 04/16/2013 | -61975 | 7994 |
| 04/23/2013 | -60112 | 1863 |
| 04/30/2013 | -58607 | 1505 |
Japanese Yen: Weekly change of +8,603
JPY: Japanese yen net speculative contracts increased last week for the third consecutive week and to the best level since February 26th. Japanese yen positions increased to a total of -71,127 net contracts on April 30th following a total of -79,730 net short contracts on April 23rd.
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Yen
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 03/26/2013 | -89149 | -9156 |
| 04/02/2013 | -78171 | 10978 |
| 04/09/2013 | -77697 | 474 |
| 04/16/2013 | -93411 | -15714 |
| 04/23/2013 | -79730 | 13681 |
| 04/30/2013 | -71127 | 8603 |
Swiss Franc: Weekly change of -9,443
CHF: Swiss franc speculator positions declined last week after improving for the previous four consecutive weeks and to the best position since February 12th. Net positions for the Swiss currency futures dropped to a total of -8,264 contracts on April 30th following a total of +1,179 net contracts reported for April 23rd.
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Franc
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 03/26/2013 | -12198 | -1202 |
| 04/02/2013 | -12015 | 183 |
| 04/09/2013 | -10014 | 2001 |
| 04/16/2013 | -3253 | 6761 |
| 04/23/2013 | 1179 | 4432 |
| 04/30/2013 | -8264 | -9443 |
Canadian Dollar: Weekly change of +3,831
CAD: Canadian dollar positions improved slightly last week for a second consecutive week after falling to a new low level for 2013 on April 16th. Canadian dollar positions improved to a total of -67,848 contracts as of April 30th following a total of -71,679 net contracts that were reported for April 23rd.
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: CAD
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 03/26/2013 | -62645 | 2686 |
| 04/02/2013 | -64544 | -1899 |
| 04/09/2013 | -71133 | -6589 |
| 04/16/2013 | -75913 | -4780 |
| 04/23/2013 | -71679 | 4234 |
| 04/30/2013 | -67848 | 3831 |
Australian Dollar: Weekly change of -1,023
AUD: The Australian dollar large speculator positions fell slightly again last week to decline for a fifth consecutive week. Aussie speculative futures positions decreased to a total net amount of +30,234 contracts on April 30th after totaling +31,257 net contracts as of April 23rd.
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: AUD
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 03/26/2013 | 85515 | 31460 |
| 04/02/2013 | 83971 | -1544 |
| 04/09/2013 | 77879 | -6092 |
| 04/16/2013 | 53175 | -24704 |
| 04/23/2013 | 31257 | -21918 |
| 04/30/2013 | 30234 | -1023 |
New Zealand Dollar: Weekly change of +1,345
NZD: New Zealand dollar speculator positions rose last week to just under the 2013 high level of April 16th. NZD contracts increased to a total of +29,050 net long contracts as of April 30th following a total of +27,705 net long contracts on April 23rd.
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: NZD
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 03/26/2013 | 16916 | 4439 |
| 04/02/2013 | 18387 | 1471 |
| 04/09/2013 | 25150 | 6763 |
| 04/16/2013 | 30808 | 5658 |
| 04/23/2013 | 27705 | -3103 |
| 04/30/2013 | 29050 | 1345 |
Mexican Peso: Weekly change of -8,360
MXN: Mexican peso speculative contracts decreased lower last week for the second consecutive week. Peso positions declined to a total of +138,551 net speculative positions as of April 30th following a total of +146,911 contracts that were reported for April 23rd.
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: MXN
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 03/26/2013 | 128162 | 18786 |
| 04/02/2013 | 142755 | 14593 |
| 04/09/2013 | 142542 | -213 |
| 04/16/2013 | 151288 | 8746 |
| 04/23/2013 | 146911 | -4377 |
| 04/30/2013 | 138551 | -8360 |
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 graphs overlay the forex spot 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.
Article by CountingPips.com – Forex News & Market Analysis
