The weekly Commitments of Traders (COT) report, released on Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), showed that large futures traders continued to add to their total bullish bets of the US dollar again last week. Total US dollar long positions have risen for four consecutive weeks and are at a new high 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, raised their overall US dollar long positions to a total of $43.77 billion as of Tuesday May 28th. This was an increase from the total long position of $41.0 billion registered on May 21st, 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.
What is the COT Report:
The weekly cot 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).
Individual Currencies Large Speculators Positions in Futures:
The individual currency speculator net positions saw advances for the British pound sterling and the Canadian dollar last week while the euro, Japanese yen, Swiss franc, New Zealand dollar, Australian dollar and the Mexican peso all had a declining number of net large trader contracts for the week.
Individual Currency Charts: (Please Click on Chart to Enlarge)
EuroFX: Large trader positions for the euro decreased last week and fell for a fourth consecutive week. Euro contracts declined to a total net position of -84,644 contracts in the data reported for May 28th following the previous week’s total of -80,949 net contracts on May 21st. Euro contracts are now at their lowest level since November 20, 2012 when contracts equaled -91,400.
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: EURO
| Date | Lg Trader Net | Change |
| 04/23/2013 | -34275 | -4511 |
| 04/30/2013 | -30149 | 4126 |
| 05/07/2013 | -33533 | -3384 |
| 05/14/2013 | -46921 | -13388 |
| 05/21/2013 | -80949 | -34028 |
| 05/28/2013 | -84644 | -3695 |
British Pound Sterling:
GBP: British pound spec positions rose slightly last week after falling for three straight weeks and to the lowest level of 2013. British pound speculative positions edged higher last week to a total of -74,525 net contracts on May 28th following a total of to -76,976 contracts reported for May 21st.
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Pound Sterling
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 04/23/2013 | -60112 | 1863 |
| 04/30/2013 | -58607 | 1505 |
| 05/07/2013 | -63086 | -4479 |
| 05/14/2013 | -65355 | -2269 |
| 05/21/2013 | -76976 | -11621 |
| 05/28/2013 | -74525 | 2451 |
Japanese Yen:
JPY: Japanese yen net speculative contracts continued to fall last week for a fourth straight week and to the lowest overall position in 2013. Japanese yen positions decreased to a total of -99,769 net contracts on May 28th following a total of -95,186 net short contracts on May 21st.
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Yen
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 04/23/2013 | -79730 | 13681 |
| 04/30/2013 | -71127 | 8603 |
| 05/07/2013 | -78560 | -7433 |
| 05/14/2013 | -88407 | -9847 |
| 05/21/2013 | -95186 | -6779 |
| 05/28/2013 | -99769 | -4583 |
Swiss Franc:
CHF: Swiss franc large speculator positions declined for a third straight week last week and dropped to the lowest level of 2013. Net positions for the Swiss currency futures decreased to a total of -28,972 contracts on May 28th following a total of -19,930 net contracts reported for May 21st.
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Franc
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 04/23/2013 | 1179 | 4432 |
| 04/30/2013 | -8264 | -9443 |
| 05/07/2013 | -6235 | 2029 |
| 05/14/2013 | -15410 | -9175 |
| 05/21/2013 | -19930 | -4520 |
| 05/28/2013 | -28972 | -9042 |
Canadian Dollar:
CAD: Canadian dollar positions improved last week for a sixth consecutive week after falling to a new low level for 2013 on April 16th. Canadian dollar positions improved slightly to a total of -33,359 contracts as of May 28th following a total of -33,852 net contracts that were reported for May 21st.
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: CAD
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 04/23/2013 | -71679 | 4234 |
| 04/30/2013 | -67848 | 3831 |
| 05/07/2013 | -51916 | 15932 |
| 05/14/2013 | -44417 | 7499 |
| 05/21/2013 | -33852 | 10565 |
| 05/28/2013 | -33359 | 493 |
Australian Dollar:
AUD: Australian dollar large speculator positions continued to fall last week to decline for a ninth consecutive week. Aussie speculative futures positions dropped to a total net amount of -42,307 contracts on May 28th after totaling -32,409 net contracts as of May 21st. This is the third week of negative Aussie large spec contracts after having been in positive territory since June 26, 2012.
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: AUD
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 04/23/2013 | 31257 | -21918 |
| 04/30/2013 | 30234 | -1023 |
| 05/07/2013 | 6630 | -23604 |
| 05/14/2013 | -13450 | -20080 |
| 05/21/2013 | -32409 | -18959 |
| 05/28/2013 | -42307 | -9898 |
New Zealand Dollar:
NZD: New Zealand dollar large speculator bets continued to decrease last week and fell for a fourth consecutive week. NZD contracts declined lower to a total of +14,011 net long contracts as of May 28th following a total of +17,782 net long contracts on May 21st.
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: NZD
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 04/23/2013 | 27705 | -3103 |
| 04/30/2013 | 29050 | 1345 |
| 05/07/2013 | 28536 | -514 |
| 05/14/2013 | 23216 | -5320 |
| 05/21/2013 | 17782 | -5434 |
| 05/28/2013 | 14011 | -3771 |
Mexican Peso:
MXN: Mexican peso speculative contracts fell lower last week for a second consecutive week. Peso positions declined to a total of +120,864 net speculative positions as of May 28th following a total of +136,863 contracts that were reported for May 21st.
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: MXN
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 04/23/2013 | 146911 | -4377 |
| 04/30/2013 | 138551 | -8360 |
| 05/07/2013 | 138444 | -107 |
| 05/14/2013 | 140319 | 1875 |
| 05/21/2013 | 136863 | -3456 |
| 05/28/2013 | 120864 | -15999 |
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 graphs overlay the forex spot 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
