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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 reduce their bullish exposure in the US dollar last week.
Non-commercial large futures traders, including hedge funds and large speculators, had an overall US dollar long position totaling $17.07 billion as of Tuesday February 7th, according to the latest data from the CFTC and dollar amount calculations by Reuters. This was a weekly retreat of $-1.4 billion from the $18.47 billion total long 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).
The US dollar speculative positions have now trimmed bullish positions for five consecutive weeks and have brought net bullish levels under the $20 billion threshold for the second week in a row. Speculative positions had previously been above this level for thirteen straight weeks dating back to November 1st.
Weekly Speculator Contract Changes:
The major currencies that improved against the US dollar last week were the euro (762 weekly change in contracts), Japanese yen (3,271 contracts), Swiss franc (2,519 contracts), Canadian dollar (5,078 contracts), Australian dollar (4,692 contracts), New Zealand dollar (2,867 contracts) and the Mexican peso (4,720 contracts).
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Meanwhile, the currency whose speculative bets fell last week versus the dollar was just the British pound sterling (-2,767 weekly change in contracts).
Table of Weekly Commercial Traders and Speculators Levels & Changes:
| Currency | Net Commercials | Comms Weekly Chg | Net Speculators | Specs Weekly Chg |
| EuroFx | 48855 | -4423 | -44951 | 762 |
| GBP | 75079 | 5304 | -64539 | -2767 |
| JPY | 79022 | -2410 | -55060 | 3271 |
| CHF | 20263 | -3442 | -14621 | 2519 |
| CAD | -18938 | -8989 | 8550 | 5078 |
| AUD | -25435 | -9905 | 16748 | 4692 |
| NZD | -3661 | -3030 | 1845 | 2867 |
| MXN | 59283 | -4628 | -58488 | 4720 |
This latest COT data is through Tuesday and shows a quick view of how large speculators or non-commercials (for-profit traders) as well as the commercial traders (hedgers & traders for business purposes) were positioned in the futures markets. 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.
*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.
Article by CountingPips.com
