CoT Highlights:
- Relatively uneventful week in CoT land
- Pound traders have been most active past couple of weeks
- Large spec profiles for other major currencies and markets
For a timelier look at sentiment in major currencies and markets, see the IG Client Sentiment page.
Friday’s report yet again didn’t show any major shifts in CoT positioning, which isn’t all that surprising given the choppy price action we’ve seen in currencies and commodities. The upside is that periods of benign price movement are followed by an uptick in volatility, so traders should be on their toes as sideways price action is bound to eventually lead to sustainable moves.
While bets on the US dollar have eased up a bit, large speculators remain largely bullish with long positioning still near its largest since the first half of last year. It will likely take a sizable decline to shake conviction. However, it is worth noting, that while bets on a higher US Dollar Index (DXY) are relatively large along with short bets against certain currencies, large specs are net-long the euro contract by a count of over 11k contracts. (Euro accounts for roughly 57% of the DXY.) However, this is considered a relative extreme given it has been trimmed from a record of nearly 150k contracts held earlier in the year.
Every Friday the CFTC releases a detailed report of traders’ positioning in the futures market as reported for the week ending on Tuesday. Outlined in the table below are key stats concerning the positioning of large speculators (i.e. hedge funds, CTAs, etc.). This group of traders largely employ trend-following strategies, and as such, their net long exposure typically increases in uptrends while net short positioning increases in downtrends. When analyzing the data, we take into consideration the direction of their position, magnitude of changes, as well as extremes.
Key stats: Net position, one-week change, and where the current position stands relative to the past 52 weeks.
See what fundamental and technical drivers are at work in the Quarterly Trading Reports.
Large speculator profiles for major FX & markets:
US Dollar Index (DXY)
Euro
British Pound
Japanese Yen
Canadian Dollar
Swiss Franc
Australian Dollar
New Zealand Dollar
Gold
Silver
Copper
Crude Oil
S&P 500 (E-mini)
Resources for Forex & CFD Traders
Whether you are a new or experienced trader, we have several resources available to help you; indicator for tracking trader sentiment, quarterly trading forecasts, analytical and educational webinars held daily, trading guides to help you improve trading performance, and one specifically for those who are new to forex.
---Written by Paul Robinson, Market Analyst
You can follow Paul on Twitter at @PaulRobinsonFX
