By CountingPips.com
The latest Commitments of Traders (COT) report, released on Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), showed that large futures speculators added to their euro short positions and increased bullish positions in favor of the US dollar. Speculative positions have now totaled a bullish dollar bias for a sixth straight week.
Non-commercial futures traders, usually hedge funds and large speculators, slightly increased their total US dollar long positions to $14.86 billion on October 18th from a total long position of $14.24 billion on October 11th, according to the CFTC COT data and calculations by Reuters which calculates the dollar positions against the euro, British pound, Japanese yen, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar and the Swiss franc.
EuroFX: Currency speculators slightly increased the short bets for the euro against the U.S. dollar as of October 18th to a total of 77,220 net short contracts from the previous week’s total of 73,795 net short contracts reported on October 11th. Euro positions are close to their most recent low point recorded on October 4th when net contracts were on the short side at 82,697.
The COT report is published every Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and shows futures positions as of the previous Tuesday. It can be a useful tool for traders to gauge investor sentiment and to look for potential changes in the direction of a currency or commodity. Each currency contract is a quote for that currency directly against the U.S. dollar, where as a net short amount of contracts means that more speculators are betting that currency to fall against the dollar and net long position expect that currency to rise versus the dollar. The graphs overlay the forex spot closing price of each Tuesday when COT trader positions are reported for each corresponding spot currency pair.
GBP: British pound sterling positions have increased for two consecutive weeks after their six-week decline, according to the data as of October 18th. Pound positions increased to a total of 53,226 net short positions on October 18th following a total of 61,972 short positions as of October 11th.
JPY: The Japanese yen net long speculative contracts decreased for a second consecutive week and to the lowest level since July. Yen positions fell to a total of 26,907 net long contracts reported on October 18th following a total of 35,119 net long contracts that were reported on October 11th. The latest data marks the lowest level since July 12 when large speculators net positions equaled 28,288.
CHF: Swiss franc long positions edged lower and fell over to the short side after an increase the previous week. Speculators decreased bets for the Swiss currency futures to a total of 2,243 net short contracts following a total of 13 net long contracts as of October 11th. The Swiss currency, usually a popular safe haven currency, has seen muted movements in recent trading since the Swiss National Bank has maintained a policy to curb the gains of the franc and initiate a peg against the euro at the 1.20 level.
CAD: Canadian dollar positions edged slightly higher from the previous week which marked the lowest bearish level of the year. CAD net contracts slightly rose to a total of 24,795 short contracts as of October 18th following a decrease to a total of 24,913 short contracts reported on October 11th.
AUD: The Australian dollar long positions increased as of October 18th after a small decline the previous week. AUD futures positions rose to a total net amount of 20,353 long contracts following a total of 10,753 net long contracts reported as of October 11th. The October 18th level was almost double the previous week’s total and almost 4 times the amount of the September 27th recent low level which had marked the lowest level for Aussie positions since July of 2010.
NZD: New Zealand dollar futures positions advanced for a second consecutive week after previously falling for a string of three consecutive weeks to the lowest level since the middle of April on October 4th. NZD contracts advanced higher to a total of 8,225 net long contracts as of October 18th following a total of 6,838 net long contracts registered on October 11th.
MXN: Mexican peso contracts edged very slightly higher as of October 18th although contracts have been essentially unchanged for three straight weeks. Peso positions edged up to a total of 24,129 net short speculative positions as of October 18th following a total of 24,870 short contracts that were reported on October 11th and a total of 25,431 short contracts on October 4th.
COT Currency Data Summary as of October 18, 2011
Large Speculators Net Positions vs. the US Dollar
EUR -77720
GBP -53226
JPY +26907
CHF -2243
CAD -24795
AUD +20353
NZD +8225
MXN -24129
