Investing.com - The Investing.com weekly sentiment index published on Monday revealed that speculators added to bearish bets on the S&P 500 in the week ending February 20.
According to the report, 39.6% of investors were long the S&P 500 as of last week, down from 45.4% in the preceding week. A reading between 30% and 50% is bearish for the instrument.
Meanwhile, 30.2% of investors held long positions in EUR/USD last week, up from 26.6% in the preceding week.
Elsewhere, 40.4% of investors were long in GBP/USD, compared to 35.6% a week earlier, 54.5% of market participants held long positions in USD/JPY, little changed from 54.4% during the previous week, while 50.3% of investors were long USD/CHF, down slightly from 50.8% in the preceding week.
Amongst the commodity-linked currencies, 49.3% were long USD/CAD, compared to 54.1% a week earlier, 52.9% held long positions in AUD/USD, up sharply from 32.2% in the preceding week, while 36.3% were long NZD/USD, down from 37.0% a week earlier.
In the commodities market, 54.9% of market participants held long positions in gold futures as of last week, up from 52.8% in the previous week.
A reading between 50%-70% is bullish for the instrument, a reading between 30% and 50% is bearish, a reading above 70% indicates overbought conditions and a reading below 30% indicates oversold conditions.
The Investing.com series of indexes is developed in-house. Each index measures overall exposure to major currency pairs, commodities and indexes, using data from futures exchanges and OTC providers on all long and short open positions.