CFTC speculative positioning: net sellers of USD for the fifth week. - ANZ

Analysts at ANZ offered the positioning data for the week ending 7 February 2017.

Key Quotes:

"Leveraged funds remained net sellers of USD for the fifth consecutive week.The selling was not as large compared to previous weeks. Funds reduced their net long USD position by USD1.6bn to USD13.6bn, the lowest since October 2016. The next CFTC data will capture the reaction to President Trump’s comments about a tax package being announced in the coming weeks.

was sold across all major currencies with the exception of the EUR.After four weeks of net buying, funds sold USD0.1bn worth of EUR to increase their overall net EUR short position to USD10.5bn. Funds reduced their net JPY shorts for the fifth week in a row ahead of the US-Japan summit on 10 February. CHF also saw buying this week to the tune of USD0.3bn whereas GBP positioning remained largely unchanged from the previous week.

Commodity currencies saw net buying for the fourth straight week. Funds added a combined USD1.2bn to their net long AUD, CAD and NZD positions. Among the G10 currencies, leveraged funds have maintained overall net long positions in the three commodity currencies for the third week running.

EM currencies reversed the previous week’s net selling to see a combined net buying of USD0.4bn. This was led by the MXN which saw a reduction of USD0.3bn from its net short position, ahead of Banco de Mexico’s decision to hike rates by 50bps. Meanwhile, BRL and RUB longs were further strengthened in the week.

Funds decided not to add further to their record long net long oil positions, reducing their exposure by 16k contracts. Reversing from the previous week, funds decreased their overall 10-year UST shorts while gold continued to see net buying for the fifth consecutive week, in line with higher prices."