Forex COT Speculators raised bets in favor of Major Currencies against US Dollar last week

By CountingPips.com

The latest data for the weekly Commitments of Traders (COT) report, released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Friday, showed that large traders and speculators increased their bets in favor of the other major currencies against the US dollar last week with the Australian dollar and British pound sterling continuing to show multi-week gains.

Non-commercial large futures traders, including hedge funds and large International Monetary Market speculators, increased their bets in favor of the euro, British pound sterling, Japanese yen, Swiss franc, Australian dollar and the New Zealand dollar last week, according to the CFTC data through April 15th. Meanwhile, there was weekly declines for the Canadian dollar and the Mexican peso.

Notable changes: Yen rises, AUD & GBP continue to gain

  • Japanese yen positions saw the biggest change for the week as positions for the yen increased by +18,746 contracts and brought the yen’s overall net bearish positions to the lowest level in approximately a month (-68,716 contracts).
  • Euro positions rose after three straight weeks of declines as the increase in bullish contracts (+13,617) outpaced the increase in bearish contracts (+9,229) last week.
  • British pound sterling net bullish positions gained for a 5th consecutive week and rose to their highest level since February 15th 2011 when bullish positions equaled +52,572 contracts.
  • Australian dollar contracts improved for a sixth consecutive week and increased the Aussie net bullish position to +8,097 contracts after making the cross from net bearish contracts to net bullish contracts on April 8th.

 

* 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. Please see charts and data below.

Weekly Charts: Large Speculators Weekly Positions vs Currency Spot Price

EuroFX:

Last Six Weeks data for EuroFX futures

Date Open Interest Long Specs Short Specs Large Specs Net Weekly Change
03/11/2014 322020 110103 73718 36385 12933
03/18/2014 264443 117819 64828 52991 16606
03/25/2014 262179 106914 67280 39634 -13357
04/01/2014 260075 101849 68611 33238 -6396
04/08/2014 261439 92635 69335 23300 -9938
04/15/2014 270722 106252 78564 27688 4388

British Pound Sterling:

Last Six Weeks data for Pound Sterling futures

Date Open Interest Long Specs Short Specs Large Specs Net Weekly Change
03/11/2014 250867 64553 42554 21999 -7606
03/18/2014 208961 64141 38605 25536 3537
03/25/2014 202115 66751 37027 29724 4188
04/01/2014 211437 75969 42397 33572 3848
04/08/2014 226667 91642 45165 46477 12905
04/15/2014 226688 87472 36874 50598 4121

Japanese Yen:

Last Six Weeks data for Yen Futures

Date Open Interest Long Specs Short Specs Large Specs Net Weekly Change
03/11/2014 242170 15726 115082 -99356 -19647
03/18/2014 156922 24144 85243 -61099 38257
03/25/2014 158280 17600 86487 -68887 -7788
04/01/2014 188464 22162 110800 -88638 -19751
04/08/2014 181814 13340 100802 -87462 1176
04/15/2014 164843 14351 83067 -68716 18746

Swiss Franc:

Last Six Weeks data for Franc futures

Date Open Interest Long Specs Short Specs Large Specs Net Weekly Change
03/11/2014 66889 23097 14140 8957 6789
03/18/2014 49391 25311 10195 15116 6159
03/25/2014 47353 25037 10218 14819 -297
04/01/2014 47228 24800 10569 14231 -588
04/08/2014 44752 19275 7940 11335 -2896
04/15/2014 48976 23905 9839 14066 2731

Canadian Dollar:

Last Six Weeks data for Canadian dollar futures

Date Open Interest Long Specs Short Specs Large Specs Net Weekly Change
03/11/2014 153639 25180 77371 -52191 8905
03/18/2014 186782 27751 97556 -69805 -17614
03/25/2014 133246 40441 73656 -33215 36590
04/01/2014 117966 27549 64543 -36994 -3779
04/08/2014 120336 28704 63011 -34307 2687
04/15/2014 119525 28288 63714 -35426 -1119

Australian Dollar:

Last Six Weeks data for Australian dollar futures

Date Open Interest Long Specs Short Specs Large Specs Net Weekly Change
03/11/2014 122241 8627 49477 -40850 258
03/18/2014 81737 21577 46040 -24463 16387
03/25/2014 84232 24387 44914 -20527 3936
04/01/2014 93999 35398 40278 -4880 15647
04/08/2014 96887 37630 34320 3310 8190
04/15/2014 98933 40463 32366 8097 4787

New Zealand Dollar:

Last Six Weeks data for New Zealand dollar futures

Date Open Interest Long Specs Short Specs Large Specs Net Weekly Change
03/11/2014 31905 21155 6706 14449 1017
03/18/2014 31463 24645 8894 15751 1302
03/25/2014 32748 26243 8030 18213 2462
04/01/2014 32313 25765 7285 18480 267
04/08/2014 32898 26521 6755 19766 1286
04/15/2014 33100 26671 6824 19847 81

Mexican Peso:

Last Six Weeks data for Mexican Peso futures

Date Open Interest Long Specs Short Specs Large Specs Net Weekly Change
03/11/2014 166949 12739 20986 -8247 12503
03/18/2014 111057 19320 20590 -1270 6977
03/25/2014 115858 22769 24423 -1654 -384
04/01/2014 145270 49893 28109 21784 23438
04/08/2014 130331 70371 13870 56501 34717
04/15/2014 131412 71038 16801 54237 -2264

*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).

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 Apps & News

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10 years ago