The Canadian dollar is the best performing major ‘risk on’ currency this year. Against the US dollar, the loonie is down by 4.5% this year. This beats all other major ‘risk on’ currencies including the euro (-5.3%), British pound (-5.9%) and the Australian dollar (-6.9%). In our last commentary, we argued that the outlook for the Canadian dollar was neutral thanks to rising crude oil prices and …

On August 10, we downgraded our outlook on WTI from neutral to bearish thanks to a significant deterioration of the trend. We determine trends for a number of major currencies and commodities based on price, trading volumes and changes in volatility. Following WTI’s latest top at $75.37/barrel, sell-offs in the commodity have been accompanied by accelerating trading volumes. This is a...

In our previous commentary on gold, we wrote that gold prices would keep falling for three reasons: (1) accelerating US inflation, (2) decelerating growth outside the United States and (3) an ongoing slowdown across emerging markets. Ultimately, all three factors were supportive for the US dollar, gold’s ultimate nemesis. Since that time (May 17), gold prices have weakened from around $1,290 to $…

In our last commentary on the Australian dollar, we wrote that the currency was an enticing short opportunity thanks to slowing Chinese growth and a bearish trend. Specifically, we recommended shorting AUD/USD as means to express a bearish view on the currency. Since that time, the pair has weakened (from 0.7560), and is trading around 0.7280 on August 13.  Going forward, we see further...

Looking at this week’s Commitments of Trader’s Report, the biggest changes in speculator positions can be seen in the US dollar index, British pound, Canadian dollar and gold. “Risk on” currencies, such as the euro and the Australian dollar, remain unattractive relative to the US dollar. Even traditional safe haven assets, such as gold and the Swiss franc, are presently no match for the dollar. T…

In our last commentary on the US dollar, we wrote that the buck was set to move higher given underlying economic trends. Specifically, US growth and inflation was likely to keep accelerating, while the opposite was likely to happen in most major regions outside the United States. Following the publication of our last commentary, the US dollar index has strengthened from around 91.80 to around...

Looking at this week’s Commitments of Traders Report, the biggest change in speculator positions can be seen in the Canadian dollar and the Australian dollar. Following several weeks of rising net positions in the US dollar (a sign that the investor community is increasingly bullish on the currency), changes were relatively limited this week. In the short-term, the US dollar’s ongoing ascent appe…

Looking at this week’s Commitments of Traders Report, there are significant changes in the US dollar index, Japanese yen, British pound, Australian dollar and Swiss franc net speculator positions. For the past several weeks, speculators have been loading up on the US dollar while selling risk and inflation-sensitive assets. Japanese yen positions are down for the fifth week in a row, while gold p…

Looking at this week’s Commitments of Traders Report, there are significant changes in Japanese yen, gold and Canadian dollar net positions. Looking at our implied measure of US dollar positioning (the inverse of net positions in other major currencies), speculators increased their bets on the US dollar for the fifth week in a row. The significant drop in both Japanese yen and gold net positions …

There are few notable changes in speculator positions according to the latest Commitments of Traders Report. The build-up in long US dollar positions has slowed this week, relative to the significant growth we saw in recent history. This being said, speculators continued to buy the US dollar this week while reducing their positions in all other major currencies (except the Swiss franc). The bigge…