Speculators boosted USD bets to $41 Billion Last Week
The weekly Commitments of Traders (COT) report, released on Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), showed that large futures traders sharply extended their total bullish bets of the US dollar again last week. Total US dollar long positions have risen for three consecutive weeks and are now at the highest level since 2008 when Reuters started calculating total amount of positions, according to Reuters.
Non-commercial large futures traders, including hedge funds and large International Monetary Market speculators, increased their overall US dollar long positions to a total of $41.0 billion as of Tuesday May 21st. This was a rise from the total long position of $32.27 billion registered on May 14th, according to position calculations by Reuters that derives this total by the amount of US dollar positions against the combined positions of euro, British pound, Japanese yen, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar and the Swiss franc.
See the full COT report & charts here…
Technical Outlook: US Dollar strength slowed last week
The US dollar’s strength cooled off a bit in the forex markets last week after two straight weeks of gains. The dollar continued its rise against the Australian dollar, British pound sterling and the Canadian dollar while falling against the euro, Japanese yen and the Swiss franc. The New Zealand dollar was virtually unchanged against the USD.
Looking ahead to the upcoming week, we have a shortened week as we start with a Monday holiday in both the US and the UK.
See the full Technical Currency Pairs post and charts here…
Next Week’s Economic Events Highlights:
Monday, May 27th
USA Holiday
UK Holiday
Tuesday, May 28th
United States — consumer confidence
euro zone — German retail sales
China — leading index
Switzerland — trade balance
Wednesday, May 29
Japan — BOJ speech
euro zone — German employment data
euro zone — German consumer price index
Canada — Bank of Canada interest rate decision
Thursday, May 30
United States — GDP first quarter
United States — personal consumption
United States — weekly jobless claims
United States — pending home sales
Japan — national consumer price index
Switzerland — GDP report
Friday, May 31
China — manufacturing PMI
euro zone — consumer price index
Canada — GDP report
United States — personal consumption expenditure
United States — University of Michigan confidence survey
See our full economic calendar for more events.
