The latest data from the CFTC covering the week ending June 26 showed that speculative traders in IMM currency futures increased their aggregate long dollar position by 20 percent to USD 27 billion. But the data did not take into account the violent price action last Friday where the dollar was sold aggressively against most G8 currencies covered in this report.
It showed that traders increased their net long dollar position just ahead of the EU Summit on a general belief that no new initiative would be announced. The EU leaders clearly caught the market off guard and the short position in EUR currency futures will undoubtedly have been scaled back, by how much we will not know for sure until this Friday when data for the week ending July 3 is published.
As seen in the table below positioning in most currency pairs is close to neutral apart from EURUSD and USDCHF. If the euphoria from last Friday can be carried over to this week some position rebuilding in the “risk-on” currencies can be expected.
Ole Hansen,
SAXO BANK