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 bullish bets of the US dollar last week for the first time in six weeks.
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 $15.28 billion as of Tuesday August 27th. This was an increase of $2.28 billion from the total long position of $13.54 billion that was registered on August 20th, according to calculations by Reuters that calculates this amount by the total of US dollar contracts against the combined contracts of the euro, British pound, Japanese yen, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar and the Swiss franc.
This was the first rise in US dollar overall long positions since July 16th when long bets rose by $1.67 billion to a total of $29.61 billion.
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 non-reportable traders (usually small traders/speculators).
Individual Currencies Large Speculators Positions in Futures:
The large non-commercial net positions for each of the individual major currencies directly against the US dollar last week saw weekly increases for the euro, British pound sterling and the Swiss franc while the Japanese yen, New Zealand dollar, Canadian dollar, Australian dollar and the Mexican peso had declining numbers of large speculator positions for the week.
Notable changes:
Euro net speculative contracts improved for the seventh straight week and are now at their highest level of 2013. Canadian dollar positions have fallen to their lowest level since June 18th while Mexican peso positions dropped to the lowest level since July 2nd.
Individual Currency Charts:
EuroFX:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: EuroFX
| Date | Large Trader Net Positions | Weekly Change |
| 07/23/2013 | -27900 | 9265 |
| 07/30/2013 | -8504 | 19396 |
| 08/06/2013 | 6061 | 14565 |
| 08/13/2013 | 16057 | 9996 |
| 08/20/2013 | 36746 | 20689 |
| 08/27/2013 | 40081 | 3335 |
British Pound Sterling:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Pound Sterling
| Date | Lg Trader Net | Weekly Change |
| 07/23/2013 | -49653 | -12207 |
| 07/30/2013 | -49463 | 190 |
| 08/06/2013 | -46033 | 3430 |
| 08/13/2013 | -46521 | -488 |
| 08/20/2013 | -39522 | 6999 |
| 08/27/2013 | -38226 | 1296 |
Japanese Yen:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Yen
| Date | Lg Trader Net | Weekly Change |
| 07/23/2013 | -87496 | -1734 |
| 07/30/2013 | -82135 | 5361 |
| 08/06/2013 | -80213 | 1922 |
| 08/13/2013 | -74462 | 5751 |
| 08/20/2013 | -71721 | 2741 |
| 08/27/2013 | -78353 | -6632 |
Swiss Franc:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Franc
| Date | Lg Trader Net | Weekly Change |
| 07/23/2013 | -5433 | -464 |
| 07/30/2013 | -1261 | 4172 |
| 08/06/2013 | -325 | 936 |
| 08/13/2013 | 2136 | 2461 |
| 08/20/2013 | 291 | -1845 |
| 08/27/2013 | 402 | 111 |
Canadian Dollar:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: CAD
| Date | Lg Trader Net | Weekly Change |
| 07/23/2013 | -16758 | 3285 |
| 07/30/2013 | -11434 | 5324 |
| 08/06/2013 | -10436 | 998 |
| 08/13/2013 | -9081 | 1355 |
| 08/20/2013 | -9544 | -463 |
| 08/27/2013 | -24959 | -15415 |
Australian Dollar:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: AUD
| Date | Lg Trader Net | Weekly Change |
| 07/23/2013 | -63982 | 6704 |
| 07/30/2013 | -72573 | -8591 |
| 08/06/2013 | -76779 | -4206 |
| 08/13/2013 | -62721 | 14058 |
| 08/20/2013 | -63183 | -462 |
| 08/27/2013 | -71117 | -7934 |
New Zealand Dollar:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: NZD
| Date | Lg Trader Net | Weekly Change |
| 07/23/2013 | -1846 | 898 |
| 07/30/2013 | -520 | 1326 |
| 08/06/2013 | -1539 | -1019 |
| 08/13/2013 | 197 | 1736 |
| 08/20/2013 | 2390 | 2193 |
| 08/27/2013 | 252 | -2138 |
Mexican Peso:
Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: MXN
| Date | Lg Trader Net | Weekly Change |
| 07/23/2013 | 19799 | 8433 |
| 07/30/2013 | 24888 | 5089 |
| 08/06/2013 | 32125 | 7237 |
| 08/13/2013 | 36320 | 4195 |
| 08/20/2013 | 36131 | -189 |
| 08/27/2013 | 7198 | -28933 |
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
