10-Year Note Non-Commercial Speculator Positions:
Large treasury bond speculators sharply boosted their bearish net positions in the 10-Year Note futures markets this week, according to the latest Commitment of Traders (COT) data released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Friday.
The non-commercial futures contracts of 10-Year Note futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of -698,194 contracts in the data reported through Tuesday August 14th. This was a weekly fall of -111,895 contracts from the previous week which had a total of -586,299 net contracts.
Speculative bearish bets surged this week by the largest weekly amount (-111,895 contracts) of the past six weeks as bearish bets have now increased for four out of the last five weeks.
The overall net standing is at the highest bearish level on record and went past the -600,000 contract threshold for the first time. The bearish speculators had previously reached the last record high just two weeks ago.
10-Year Note Commercial Positions:
Meanwhile, the commercial traders position, hedgers or traders engaged in buying and selling for business purposes, totaled a net position of 843,257 contracts on the week. This was a weekly rise of 69,229 contracts from the total net of 774,028 contracts reported the previous week.
This week’s commercial trader position also reached a new record high but on the bullish side of things this week above the +800,000 net contract level. The previous record high was registered two weeks ago.
iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond (NASDAQ:IEF) ETF:
Over the same weekly reporting time-frame, from Tuesday to Tuesday, the 7-10 Year Treasury Bond ETF (IEF) closed at approximately $102.24 which was an uptick of $0.68 from the previous close of $101.56, according to unofficial market data.