US 10-Year Treasury Note Speculators added sharply to bearish bets last week

By CountingPips.com

Weekly CFTC Net Speculator Report

10 Year Treasuries: Large speculators and futures market traders sharply increased their overall bearish positions in the 10-year treasury note futures by the most since August, according to the latest Commitment of Traders (COT) data released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Monday.

The non-commercial futures contracts of the 10-year treasury notes, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of -173,674 contracts in the data reported for December 31st. This was a change of -67,906 contracts from the previous week’s total of -105,768 net contracts that was recorded on December 24th. The -67,906 change was the largest weekly increase in bearish positions since August 27th when 10-Year bets registered a weekly change of -85,985 contracts. Overall net positions are now at the most bearish level since November 19th when net positions totaled -180,363 contracts.

Over the same reporting time-frame, from Tuesday December 24th to Tuesday December 31st, the yield on the 10-Year treasury note increased from 2.99 to a yield of 3.04, according to data from the United States Treasury Department.

Last 6 Weeks of Large Trader Non-Commercial Positions

*COT Report: The weekly commitment of traders 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). Find CFTC criteria here: (http://www.cftc.gov/MarketReports/CommitmentsofTraders/ExplanatoryNotes/index.htm).

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