CFTC: EUR and GBP shorts added, JPY longs trimmed - RBS

Research Team at RBS, suggests that this week’s CFTC CoT survey covers the week ending July 26th, meaning the latest data cover the soft UK July PMIs and the ECB decision but do not cover the 2Q US GDP figure or the BoJ decision.

Key Quotes

“In rates, asset managers added to shorts in ED and trimmed longs in US. In FV and WN they added to longs. Meanwhile, levered funds trimmed short positions in EDs and added to them in FV and TY. Looking at the overall speculative positioning, longs in TY and US, as well as shorts in ED and FV, were all added to, while the positioning in TU flipped from slightly net long to slightly net short.

In FX, speculators added to shorts in EUR and GBP. In GBP, speculative shorts reached an all-time extreme this week, with a net short of -81k contracts. In EUR positioning, speculators have nearly doubled their short position over the last month alone. Speculators held a 62K short position on July 1st but now hold 113K contracts net short. In this pre-BoJ week, speculators trimmed net longs in JPY but remained net long overall. In JPY, asset managers trimmed their net shorts while levered funds cut net longs. In the commodity currencies, speculators trimmed longs in both AUD and NZD but added to longs in CAD.”