Speculators in Australian dollar futures notched a net short position for the first time since April 2001 in conjunction with a steep drop in commodity prices, data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed on Friday.
The data from the CFTC's Commitments of Traders report on speculative positioning are used by analysts as an indicator of future market direction.
For example, extreme net long speculative positions often signal a decline in a currency, especially if that position conflicts with the positioning of the more influential commercial players.
Speculators generally are trend followers seeking to pick a precise top or bottom in the market.
The data are from the week ended May 11.
Australian dollar speculators logged a net-short position of 2,842 contracts compared with a net long position of 2,186 contracts in the prior period.
During the CFTC's reporting period, June Australian dollar futures declined to a close of $0.6926 on May 11 from a close of $0.7260 on May 5.
The contract declined to a seven-month low of $0.6806 on Friday before rebounding.
The steep decline in commodity prices occurred after China, a big importer of raw materials, said it was looking to slow down its economic growth in order to keep inflation low.
Australia, as well as Canada, are major suppliers of commodities, and a slowdown in China's voracious appetite for them has contributed to their loss of value in the last six weeks.
Canadian dollar speculators extended the net short-position to 25,648 contracts, its largest such position since November 2001, from a net short position of 19,391 contracts in the prior week.
Speculators in Mexican peso futures pushed the all-time net-short position to 37,871 contracts from the prior-week's record net-short position of 29,427 contracts.
Euro speculators increased the net-long position to 12,478 contracts, its largest since the March 9 period's net-long position of 14,065 contracts.
Yen speculators pushed the market to net-short position of 10,093 contracts.