The weekly Commitments of Traders (COT) report, released on Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), showed that large futures traders and currency speculators cut back on their total bullish bets of the US dollar last week after increasing their positions over the previous three weeks.
Non-commercial large futures traders, including hedge funds and large International Monetary Market speculators, pared their overall US dollar long positions to a total of $28.69 billion as of Tuesday July 23rd. This was a decrease from the total long position of $29.61 billion that was registered on July 16th, according to position calculations by Reuters that derives this total by the amount of US dollar positions against the combined positions of euro, British pound, Japanese yen, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar and the Swiss franc.
COT explanation: 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 large currency speculator net positions for each of the individual major currencies directly against the US Dollar last week showed weekly increases for the euro, Australian dollar, New Zealand dollar, Canadian dollar and the Mexican peso while the British pound sterling, Japanese yen and the Swiss franc all had a declining number of large speculator positions for the week.
Notable changes: Euro net speculative contracts rose modestly for the second straight week while the British pound and Japanese yen net positions both fell for the fourth consecutive week and the Swiss franc net positions dropped for the fifth week.
Individual Currency Charts:
EuroFX:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: EuroFX
| Date | Lg Trader Net | Change |
| 06/18/2013 | 20030 | 27563 |
| 06/25/2013 | 17357 | -2673 |
| 07/02/2013 | -16090 | -33447 |
| 07/09/2013 | -40900 | -24810 |
| 07/16/2013 | -37165 | 3735 |
| 07/23/2013 | -27900 | 9265 |
British Pound Sterling:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Pound Sterling
| Date | Lg Trader Net | Change |
| 06/18/2013 | -20406 | 33281 |
| 06/25/2013 | -19429 | 977 |
| 07/02/2013 | -31324 | -11895 |
| 07/09/2013 | -34259 | -2935 |
| 07/16/2013 | -37446 | -3187 |
| 07/23/2013 | -49653 | -12207 |
Japanese Yen:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Yen
| Date | Lg Trader Net | Change |
| 06/18/2013 | -61890 | 11016 |
| 06/25/2013 | -61462 | 428 |
| 07/02/2013 | -70736 | -9274 |
| 07/09/2013 | -80305 | -9569 |
| 07/16/2013 | -85762 | -5457 |
| 07/23/2013 | -87496 | -1734 |
Swiss Franc:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Franc
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 06/18/2013 | 5791 | 26529 |
| 06/25/2013 | 2464 | -3327 |
| 07/02/2013 | -116 | -2580 |
| 07/09/2013 | -1776 | -1660 |
| 07/16/2013 | -4969 | -3193 |
| 07/23/2013 | -5433 | -464 |
Canadian Dollar:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: CAD
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 06/18/2013 | -26087 | 9820 |
| 06/25/2013 | -10638 | 15449 |
| 07/02/2013 | -16250 | -5612 |
| 07/09/2013 | -23829 | -7579 |
| 07/16/2013 | -20043 | 3786 |
| 07/23/2013 | -16758 | 3285 |
Australian Dollar:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: AUD
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 06/18/2013 | -63521 | -244 |
| 06/25/2013 | -61644 | 1877 |
| 07/02/2013 | -70515 | -8871 |
| 07/09/2013 | -63255 | 7260 |
| 07/16/2013 | -70686 | -7431 |
| 07/23/2013 | -63982 | 6704 |
New Zealand Dollar:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: NZD
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 06/18/2013 | 2126 | -527 |
| 06/25/2013 | -711 | -2837 |
| 07/02/2013 | -1174 | -463 |
| 07/09/2013 | -1008 | 166 |
| 07/16/2013 | -2744 | -1736 |
| 07/23/2013 | -1846 | 898 |
Mexican Peso:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: MXN
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 06/18/2013 | 20949 | -42825 |
| 06/25/2013 | 4981 | -15968 |
| 07/02/2013 | 2847 | -2134 |
| 07/09/2013 | 8035 | 5188 |
| 07/16/2013 | 11366 | 3331 |
| 07/23/2013 | 19799 | 8433 |
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
