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Weekly CoT Update for Euro, Crude Oil, and Other Major Contracts

Weekly CoT Update for Euro, Crude Oil, and Other Major Contracts

What's on this page

CoT Highlights:

  • Euro large specs shortest again since March 2017
  • Sellers show up in crude oil for an 8th week in a row
  • Large speculator profiles for other major currencies/markets

See the IG Client Sentiment page for a timelier look at sentiment in major currencies and markets.

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S., last week’s report wasn’t released until yesterday, an occurrence which happens a couple of times a year around holidays. There weren’t any significant one-week changes to take note of, for the most part a continuation of prior themes. The short position held by large speculators in the Euro grew to its largest since March of last year while the same group of traders continued to hit the bid in crude oil.

On Fridays (most weeks) 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.), excluding small speculators and commercial traders.

‘Large specs’ are known to typically employ trend-following strategies, and as such, they tend to add to long positions and reduce shorts in uptrends while reducing long positions and increasing shorts 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.

CFTC CoT data

See what fundamental and technical drivers are at work in the Q4 Trading Forecasts.

Euro large specs shortest again since March 2017

Large specs added to their net-short in the Euro by a count of over 10k contracts, expanding the position to -47k, the largest short held since March 2017. It was the 7th time out of the past eight weeks since turning net-short that the position has grown. With the trend pointed firmly lower since earlier in the year more selling looks likely to be ahead as no major extreme has yet been met to suggest the trend is saturated.

Euro Positioning Chart

EUR/USD positioning chart

Sellers show up in crude oil for an 8th week in a row

Last week crude oil smashed through trend support, and with it sellers made it the 8th consecutive week of selling. It’s the smallest net long in about 14 months. Crude oil looks oversold, but with momentum so strong it’s a risky market to be searching for a low in. Some of last week’s selling wasn’t captured in the most recent report due to the tally only extending through last Tuesday, but if after seeing such a large reduction there is a suddenly outsized round of selling it may indicate an inflection point which could point to a tradeable low.

Crude Oil w/Positioning Chart (Oversold bounce soon?)

Crude oil positioning chart

Other markets:

US Dollar Index (DXY)

British Pound

Japanese Yen

Canadian Dollar

Swiss Franc

Australian Dollar

New Zealand Dollar

Gold

Silver

Copper

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

DailyFX provides forex news and technical analysis on the trends that influence the global currency markets.

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