Speculators cut short dollar bets to lowest since July
- US dollar positioning was derived from contracts of International Monetary Market speculators in the Japanese yen, euro, British pound, and Swiss franc.
- The speculative community has short the dollar since mid-March.
NEW YORK: Speculators reduced their net short dollar positions in the latest week to the lowest level since late July, according to calculations by Reuters and US Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released on Friday.
The value of the net short dollar position fell to $28.35 billion in the week ended Oct. 6, compared with a net short of $30.47 billion the previous week. US net shorts hit a more than nine-year high of $33.68 billion in late August.
US dollar positioning was derived from contracts of International Monetary Market speculators in the Japanese yen, euro, British pound, and Swiss franc, as well as the Canadian and Australian dollars.
In a broader measure of dollar positioning that includes net contracts on the New Zealand dollar, Mexican peso, Brazilian real, and Russian ruble, the US dollar posted a short position of $28.56 billion, down from net shorts of $30.41 billion the week before.
The speculative community has been short the dollar since mid-March.
In the week through Oct. 6, the dollar index ultimately ended the period little changed, having followed see-sawing headlines about US President Donald Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis and the possibility that Congress might provide further fiscal stimulus.
The possibility of a new coronavirus relief bill has driven the dollar, among other safe-haven assets, lower since Tuesday. The dollar fell to three-week lows on Friday on stimulus optimism, and as investors bet that Democrat Joe Biden is more likely to win the US presidency and offer a larger economic package.
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