Currency Speculators increased bets against US Dollar last week for 3rd 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 continued to decrease their bets in the US dollar last week as overall US dollar positions fell to their lowest level since October.

Non-commercial large futures traders, including hedge funds and large International Monetary Market speculators, had an overall US dollar short position totaling -$1.58 billion as of Tuesday April 22nd, according to the latest data from the CFTC and calculations by Reuters. This was a weekly change of -$0.41 billion from the -$1.17 billion total short position that was registered on April 15th, according to Reuters that totals the US dollar contracts against the combined contracts of the euro, British pound, Japanese yen, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar and the Swiss franc.

Last week’s data marks the highest short position in the US dollar since October 29th 2013 when bearish positions equaled -$3.14 billion.

For the week, speculators increased their bets in favor of the Japanese yen, Australian dollar and the New Zealand dollar while there was weekly declines for the euro, British pound sterling, Swiss franc, Canadian dollar and the Mexican peso.

Notable changes:

  • Euro positions have fallen four out of the last five weeks to the lowest level since March 4th
  • British pound sterling positions fell slightly after five straight weeks of gains
  • Japanese yen positions rose for the third straight week
  • Swiss franc (-43), Canadian dollar (-29), New Zealand dollar (+328) and Mexican Peso (-726) positions saw little change for the week
  • Australian dollar net positions rose the most in the week (+8,273) as the Aussie had its third straight bullish position and highest bullish standing since April 2013

 

* 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
03/18/2014 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
04/22/2014 266259 101204 75430 25774 -1914

British Pound Sterling:

Last Six Weeks data for Pound Sterling futures

Date Open Interest Long Specs Short Specs Large Specs Net Weekly Change
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
04/22/2014 237055 89692 41892 47800 -2798

Japanese Yen:

Last Six Weeks data for Yen Futures

Date Open Interest Long Specs Short Specs Large Specs Net Weekly Change
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
04/22/2014 165674 16564 83807 -67243 1473

Swiss Franc:

Last Six Weeks data for Franc futures

Date Open Interest Long Specs Short Specs Large Specs Net Weekly Change
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
04/22/2014 46888 21732 7709 14023 -43

Canadian Dollar:

Last Six Weeks data for Canadian dollar futures

Date Open Interest Long Specs Short Specs Large Specs Net Weekly Change
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
04/22/2014 118707 27529 62984 -35455 -29

Australian Dollar:

Last Six Weeks data for Australian dollar futures

Date Open Interest Long Specs Short Specs Large Specs Net Weekly Change
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
04/22/2014 107696 49540 33170 16370 8273

New Zealand Dollar:

Last Six Weeks data for New Zealand dollar futures

Date Open Interest Long Specs Short Specs Large Specs Net Weekly Change
03/18/2014 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
04/22/2014 32579 26056 5881 20175 328

Mexican Peso:

Last Six Weeks data for Mexican Peso futures

Date Open Interest Long Specs Short Specs Large Specs Net Weekly Change
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
04/22/2014 128932 68329 14818 53511 -726

*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