U.S. dollar net speculator positions edged higher to $15.34 billion last week
The latest data for the weekly Commitment of Traders (COT) report, released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Friday, showed that large traders and currency speculators slightly added to their bullish bets for the U.S. dollar last week for a second straight week.
Non-commercial large futures traders, including hedge funds and large speculators, had an overall U.S. dollar long position totaling $15.34 billion as of Tuesday April 18th, according to the latest data from the CFTC and dollar amount calculations by Reuters. This was a weekly gain of $0.30 billion from the $15.04 billion total long position that was registered the previous week, according to the Reuters calculation (totals of the U.S. dollar contracts against the combined contracts of the euro, British pound, Japanese yen, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar and the Swiss franc).
US dollar speculative positions have stayed in a very tight range over the past four weeks with a low of $14.67 billion and a high of $15.34 billion. Weekly changes have been below $1 billion for the past three weeks.
Weekly Speculator Contract Changes:
The major currencies that rose against the U.S. dollar last week were the British pound sterling (6,411 contracts), Japanese yen (4,301 contracts), New Zealand dollar (147 contracts) and the Mexican peso (26,919 contracts).
The currencies whose speculative bets fel last week versus the dollar were the euro (-2,693 weekly change in contracts), Swiss franc (-3,674 contracts), Canadian dollar (-918 contracts) and the Australian dollar (-1,889 contracts).
Weekly Charts: Large Trader Weekly Positions vs Price
EuroFX:
British Pound Sterling:
Japanese Yen:
Swiss Franc:
Canadian Dollar:
Australian Dollar:
New Zealand Dollar:
Mexican Peso:
*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).
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 charts overlay the forex 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.