Month: September 2013

By CountingPips.com

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 sharply on their bullish bets of the US dollar last week. Large traders had boosted long positions the previous three weeks.

Non-commercial large futures traders, including hedge funds and large International Monetary Market speculators, dropped their overall US dollar long positions to a total of $10.80 billion as of Tuesday September 17th. This was a decrease of $11.21 billion from the total long position of $22.01 billion that was registered on September 10th, according to data from Reuters that calculates this amount by the total of US dollar contracts against the combined contracts of the euro, British pound, Japanese yen, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar and the Swiss franc.

US dollar overall long positions are now at their lowest level since February 19th when long bets were at a total of just $1.481 billion and the weekly decrease of $11.21 billion was the largest decline since the week of June 18th when positions fell by $13.73 billion.

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 non-reportable traders (usually small traders/speculators).

Comments: Large Traders cut back on US dollar contracts just before the Fed Tapering announcement

Interestingly, this latest COT data is from one day before the US Federal Reserve’s decision on whether to scale back or “taper” the QE3 stimulus program. It was widely expected that the Fed would taper at least slightly (although the Fed refrained) and the event was thought to be a likely case for a stronger US dollar.

The large trader data, however, suggests that these traders were betting either the Fed would not taper or that, perhaps, the tapering was already priced into the market and therefore a way to trade against the obvious strong dollar idea.

Either way, it is interesting that the largest weekly decrease in USD bullish positions since June happened a day before the Fed announcement.

Individual Currencies Large Speculators Positions in Futures:

The large non-commercial net positions for each of the individual major currencies directly against the US dollar last week saw weekly increases for the euro, British pound sterling, Japanese yen, Swiss franc, Canadian dollar, Australian dollar and the New Zealand dollar while just the Mexican peso had a declining number of large speculator positions for the week.

Individual Currency Charts:

EuroFX:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: EuroFX

British Pound Sterling:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Pound Sterling

Japanese Yen:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Yen

Swiss Franc:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Franc

Canadian Dollar:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: CAD

Australian Dollar:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: AUD

New Zealand Dollar:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: NZD

Mexican Peso:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: MXN

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

Germany’s ThyssenKrupp won support from banks to extend credit lines worth 2.5 billion euros ($3.4 billion) as the steelmaker is grappling with billions of debt and its ailing Americas business.

By CountingPips.com

Weekly CFTC Net Speculator Report

10 Year Treasuries: Large trader and futures market speculators added to their overall bearish positions last week in the 10-year treasury notes after cutting back on shorts the previous two weeks. The 10-year treasury non-commercial contracts totaled a net position of -126,026 contracts in the data reported for September 17th. This was a change of -40,702 contracts from the previous week’s total of -85,324 net contracts that was registered on September 3rd.

In the same time-frame, the yield on the 10 Year treasury note declined from 2.96 on Tuesday September 10th to 2.86 on Tuesday September 17th, according to US Treasury data.

Last 6 Weeks of Large Trader Positions

*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).

Article by CountingPips.com – Forex News

Locked in a tug of war with lawmakers over spending and borrowing, President Barack Obama is pressing his case in America’s heartland that Congress mustn’t jeopardize fragile economic progress with threats of a government shutdown. (Sept. 20)

Claiming victory, House Speaker John Boehner hailed the House vote Friday to derail ‘Obamacare’ but continue funding the government. Boehner called President Barack Obama’s health care law ‘a trainwreck,’ that is ‘hurting the American people.’ (Sept. 20)

Prior to their vote, members of the House of Representatives engaged in heated debate over Obamacare, the budget, and the threat of a government shutdown. (Sept. 20)

Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan surprised markets in his maiden policy review by raising interest rates to ward off rising inflation, while scaling back some of the emergency measures recently put in place to support the ailing rupee. Rajan, who took office early this month amid India’s worst economic crisis since 1991, increased the RBI’s policy repo rate by 25 basis points to 7.50 percent, defying most forecasts that he would leave the rate on hold to bolster a sluggish economy. India’s finance minister cites multiple factors for India’s problems

Wall Street paused as investors tried to figure out what to do next following the Federal Reserve’s decision to keep its economic stimulus in place. The Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor’s 500 index pulled back from their record highs.

A Texas appeals court tossed the criminal conviction of former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, saying there was insufficient evidence for a jury in 2010 to have found him guilty of illegally funneling money to Republican candidates.

General Electric Co’s decision to name rising star Lorenzo Simonelli to head its oil and gas equipment business signals just how important energy has become to the conglomerate as it retreats from finance and returns to its industrial roots.