Looking at this week’s Commitments of Traders Report, there are few notable changes in speculator positioning. The only move worth highlighting can be seen in Swiss franc net positions. For the second week in a row, speculators cut back on their short franc positions. As we wrote two weeks ago, the Swiss franc entered a bullish trend against the US dollar and is likely to keep strengthening for t…

Looking at this week’s Commitments of Traders Report, there are very few notable changes in speculator positioning. The biggest change can be seen in Swiss franc net positions. After the franc entered a bullish trend (a topic we covered last week), net short positions in the currency are down significantly this week. Short euro, short Swiss franc and long US dollar (based on our implied measure …

In this week’s Commitments of Traders Report, notable changes in speculator positions in major currencies and commodities are fairly limited. The most substantial changes can be seen in the British pound and the Swiss franc. Speculators significantly increased their bets against the British pound, while reducing their bets against the Swiss franc this week. Looking at extremes in positioning, sh…

In our last take on the euro in April, we wrote that the bullish case for the currency was running out of drivers. Specifically, we wrote that decelerating Eurozone growth (in rate-of-change terms), changes in trading patterns and overly bullish speculator sentiment was likely to weigh on the euro in the future. At the time, EUR/USD was trading around 1.23, near its 2018 high just above 1.2550. 

Looking at this week’s Commitments of Traders Report, changes in speculator positioning across major currencies and commodities are fairly limited. The most substantial changes can be seen in the US dollar index, British pound and Japanese yen. Net positions for all three currencies were up this week. While speculator positions in the US dollar index are up this week, they are falling based on o…

In our previous piece on pound sterling, we wrote that the currency was likely to weaken thanks to (1) slowing growth across Europe, (2) excessively bullish speculator sentiment and (3) Brexit-related woes. Thanks to the UK’s significant trading ties with the EU, we wrote that the pound was unlikely to escape a slowdown across the region. Furthermore, speculator positioning in the pound looked ex…

Looking at this week’s Commitments of Traders Report, changes in speculator positioning across major currencies and commodities are relatively limited. Speculators continue buying the US dollar, with positioning in both the US dollar index contract and our implied measure of US dollar positioning rising this week. In general, commodities are increasingly out of favor while speculators are now net…

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 $…