US Dollar net speculator positions fell to $-3.92 billion last week
The latest data for the weekly Commitment of Traders (COT) report, released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Friday, showed that large traders and currency speculators continued to decrease their buying of the US dollar this week.
Non-commercial large futures traders, including hedge funds and large speculators, had an overall US dollar position totaling $-3.92 billion as of Tuesday July 25th, according to the latest data from the CFTC and dollar amount calculations by Reuters. This was a weekly decline of $-2.01 billion from the $-1.91 billion total position that was registered the previous week, according to the Reuters calculation (totals of the US dollar contracts against the combined contracts of the euro, British pound, Japanese yen, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar and the Swiss franc).
Speculative bets for the dollar have now fallen for five straight weeks as the dollar resides in bearish territory for a second consecutive week. The dollar fell into a bearish position last week for the first time since May 17th 2016 when net positions totaled $-4.19 billion.
Weekly Speculator Contract Changes:
The individual major currencies saw only one weekly change above the 10,000 contract mark this week in the speculators category.
- Canadian dollar positions jumped by over +18,000 contracts and rose for a ninth straight week. CAD positions are now in bullish territory for a second straight week after crossing over last week and have gained by over +125,000 in the past nine weeks.
Overall, the major currencies that improved against the US dollar last week were the Japanese yen (5,430 weekly change in contracts), Swiss franc (2,117 contracts), Canadian dollar (18,570 contracts), Australian dollar (5,018 contracts) and the Mexican peso (351 contracts).
The currencies whose speculative bets fell last week versus the dollar were the euro (-479 weekly change in contracts), British pound sterling (-9,724 contracts) and the New Zealand dollar (-1,176 contracts).
Weekly Charts: Large Trader Weekly Positions vs Price
EuroFX:
British Pound Sterling:
Japanese Yen:
Swiss Franc:
Canadian Dollar:
Australian Dollar:
New Zealand Dollar:
Mexican Peso:
*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). Find CFTC criteria here: (http://www.cftc.gov/MarketReports/CommitmentsofTraders/ExplanatoryNotes/index.htm).
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 charts overlay the forex 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.