The weekly Commitments of Traders (COT) report, released on Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), showed that large futures traders and currency speculators added to their total bullish bets of the US dollar last week for a second consecutive week.
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 $27.94 billion as of Tuesday July 9th. This was a rise from the total long position of $22.37 billion that was registered on July 2nd, 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.
USD net long positions are at their highest level since June 11th when bullish positions equaled $28.28 billion, according to Reuters data calculations.
COT explanation: 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 large currency speculator net positions for each of the individual major currencies last week showed weekly increases for the Australian dollar, New Zealand dollar and the Mexican peso while the euro, British pound sterling, Japanese yen, Swiss franc and the Canadian dollar all had a declining number of large speculator positions for the week.
Notable changes: Euro spec contracts fell for a third straight week and declined further on the short side to the lowest position since June 4th while the Australian dollar positions increased by over 7000 contracts last week, suggesting a short-term bottom may have been reached on July 2nd at -70,515 contracts.
Individual Currency Charts:
EuroFX:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: EuroFX
| Date | Lg Trader Net | Change |
| 06/04/2013 | -51621 | 33023 |
| 06/11/2013 | -7533 | 44088 |
| 06/18/2013 | 20030 | 27563 |
| 06/25/2013 | 17357 | -2673 |
| 07/02/2013 | -16090 | -33447 |
| 07/09/2013 | -40900 | -24810 |
British Pound Sterling:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Pound Sterling
| Date | Lg Trader Net | Change |
| 06/04/2013 | -77738 | -3213 |
| 06/11/2013 | -53687 | 24051 |
| 06/18/2013 | -20406 | 33281 |
| 06/25/2013 | -19429 | 977 |
| 07/02/2013 | -31324 | -11895 |
| 07/09/2013 | -34259 | -2935 |
Japanese Yen:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Yen
| Date | Lg Trader Net | Change |
| 06/04/2013 | -82744 | 17025 |
| 06/11/2013 | -72906 | 9838 |
| 06/18/2013 | -61890 | 11016 |
| 06/25/2013 | -61462 | 428 |
| 07/02/2013 | -70736 | -9274 |
| 07/09/2013 | -80305 | -9569 |
Swiss Franc:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Franc
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 06/04/2013 | -25803 | 3169 |
| 06/11/2013 | -20738 | 5065 |
| 06/18/2013 | 5791 | 26529 |
| 06/25/2013 | 2464 | -3327 |
| 07/02/2013 | -116 | -2580 |
| 07/09/2013 | -1776 | -1660 |
Canadian Dollar:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: CAD
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 06/04/2013 | -39776 | -6417 |
| 06/11/2013 | -35907 | 3869 |
| 06/18/2013 | -26087 | 9820 |
| 06/25/2013 | -10638 | 15449 |
| 07/02/2013 | -16250 | -5612 |
| 07/09/2013 | -23829 | -7579 |
Australian Dollar:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: AUD
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 06/04/2013 | -58550 | -16243 |
| 06/11/2013 | -63277 | -4727 |
| 06/18/2013 | -63521 | -244 |
| 06/25/2013 | -61644 | 1877 |
| 07/02/2013 | -70515 | -8871 |
| 07/09/2013 | -63255 | 7260 |
New Zealand Dollar:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: NZD
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 06/04/2013 | 6013 | -7998 |
| 06/11/2013 | 2653 | -3360 |
| 06/18/2013 | 2126 | -527 |
| 06/25/2013 | -711 | -2837 |
| 07/02/2013 | -1174 | -463 |
| 07/09/2013 | -1008 | 166 |
Mexican Peso:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: MXN
| date | Lg Trader Net | Change Weekly |
| 05/28/2013 | 120864 | -15999 |
| 06/04/2013 | 82871 | -37993 |
| 06/18/2013 | 20949 | -42825 |
| 06/25/2013 | 4981 | -15968 |
| 07/02/2013 | 2847 | -2134 |
| 07/09/2013 | 8035 | 5188 |
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
