Month: August 2013

President Obama meets with top financial regulators as many of the required Dodd-Frank reforms remain incomplete. Andrew Ackerman reports on the News Hub. Photo: AP.

Apple shares got a short-term boost last week from billionaire investor Carl Icahn’s tweets pressuring the company to borrow money to buy back more stock, but such a move would do little to help long-term investors.

The big drop in gold prices may be over but the rebound is volatile. Gold futures surged 4.5% to close at $1,371 an ounce–its highest price in two months. Investors including hedge fund managers John Paulson and George Soros had been liquidating positions in the popular SPDR Gold Trust ETF, which ?really killed gold.?

Rick Reagan joins Dan Cummings with some great websites for people to learn about their finances.

Unions, creditors and retirees are expected to file formal objections to Detroit?s eligibility for bankruptcy protection, the opening of a legal fight over whether the largest municipal bankruptcy in the nation?s history should proceed.

British banking group Lloyds is set to sell its German insurance business to Frankfurt-listed insurer Hannover Re for 400 million euros as it continues to streamline its business, according to a report.

By CountingPips.com

Weekly CFTC Net Speculator Report

10 Year Treasuries: Large trader and speculator positions for 10-year treasury notes in the futures markets decreased last week for a second straight week and to the most bearish position of 2013. 10-year treasury non-commercial contracts decreased to a total net position of -66,432 contracts in the data reported for August 13th. This is a decline of -46,336 contracts from the previous week’s total of -20,096 net contracts on August 6th. In the same time-frame, the yield on the 10 Year treasury note rose from 2.67 on Tuesday August 6th to 2.71 on Tuesday August 13th, according to US Treasury data.

Last 6 Weeks of Large Trader Positions

*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).

Article by CountingPips.com – Forex News & Market Analysis

By CountingPips.com

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 reduced their bullish bets of the US dollar last week for a fourth consecutive week.

Non-commercial large futures traders, including hedge funds and large International Monetary Market speculators, cut back on their overall US dollar long positions to a total of $17.62 billion as of Tuesday August 13th. This was a decrease of $4 billion from the total long position of $21.62 billion that was registered on August 6th, according to calculations by Reuters that derives this amount by the total of US dollar contracts against the combined contract totals of the euro, British pound, Japanese yen, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar and the Swiss franc.

US dollar overall long positions, for a second straight week, continued to be at the lowest level since June 25th when long bets equaled $13.28 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, Japanese yen, Swiss franc, Australian dollar, New Zealand dollar, Canadian dollar and the Mexican peso while only the British pound sterling had a declining number of large speculator positions for the week.

Notable changes:

Euro net speculative contracts improved for a fifth straight week and are at their highest level since June 25th. The Australian dollar large spec contracts saw their largest gain since March last week as the Aussie may have seen a potential short-term bottom in trader sentiment after falling to the most bearish position of its recent decline on August 6th.

Individual Currency Charts:

EuroFX:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: EuroFX

British Pound Sterling:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Pound Sterling

Japanese Yen:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Yen

Swiss Franc:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Franc

Canadian Dollar:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: CAD

Australian Dollar:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: AUD

New Zealand Dollar:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: NZD

Mexican Peso:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: MXN

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

Advertising technology company Rocket Fuel Inc filed with U.S. regulators to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering of its common stock. Credit Suisse and Citigroup are acting as lead underwriters for the offering, Rocket Fuel said in a regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Chuck Jaffe’s short time with a smartphone has made it obvious to him that the increase in personal productivity that someone can get by being able to handle chores like bill-paying and more by phone is impressive. But, constant access to one’s finances tends to turn running money into an obsession. Photo: Getty Images.