Tag Archive: COT

FX Daily, August 17: The Dollar Softens to Start the New Week

The capital markets are looking for direction.  Asia Pacific equity markets were mixed, with gains in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan countering losses in Japan, South Korea, and Australia.  European and US shares are trading slightly firmer.

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COT Black: No Love For Super-Secret Models

As I’ve said, it is a threefold failure of statistical models. The first being those which showed the economy was in good to great shape at the start of this thing. Widely used and even more widely cited, thanks to Jay Powell and his 2019 rate cuts plus “repo” operations the calculations suggested the system was robust.

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COT Blue: Distinct Lack of Green But A Lot That’s Gold

Gold, in my worldview, can be a “heads I win, tails you lose” proposition. If it goes up, that’s fear. Nothing good. If it goes down, that’s collateral. In many ways, worse. Either way, it is only bad, right? Not always. There are times when rising gold signals inflation, more properly reflation perceptions. Determining which is which is the real challenge.

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COT Blue: Interest In Open Interest

For me, the defining characteristic of the late nineties wasn’t the dot-coms. Most people were exposed to the NASDAQ because, frankly, at the time there was no getting away from it. It had seeped into everything, transforming from a financial niche bleeding eventually into the entire worldwide culture. We all remember the grocery clerks who became day traders.

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Harvey’s Muted (Price) Impact On Oil

The impact of Hurricane Harvey on the Gulf energy region is becoming clear. There have been no surprises to date, even though the storm did considerable damage and shuttered or disrupted significant capacity. Most of that related to gasoline, which Americans have been feeling in pump prices.

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COT Report: Black (Crude) and Blue (UST’s)

Over the past month, crude prices have been pinned in a range $50 to the high side and ~$46 at the low. In the futures market, the price of crude is usually set by the money managers (how net long they shift). As discussed before, there have been notable exceptions to this paradigm including some big ones this year.

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History of SNB Interventions

High inflows of around 400 billion francs between 2009 and 2012 in the Swiss balance of payments could only be countered with an increase in reserve assets and interventions by the Swiss National Bank. This number is far higher than the one seen during the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, when the ten times bigger Germany had to buy reserves for 71 billion German Marks (at the time around 56 billion CHF). We look at the detailed history of...

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Currency Positioning and Technical Outlook August 12: Corrective Pressures Dominate

Submitted by Marc Chandler, Global Head of Currency Strategy, Brown Brothers Harriman The main tension in the foreign exchange market is between positions adjusting pressures, which are US dollar negative, and widely held ideas that the trajectory of growth and interest rate differentials favor the US, which is dollar positive. There are some important economic data due …

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Net Speculative Position and Technical Outlook: A Week of Fundamentals

Submitted by Marc Chandler, Global Head of Currency Strategy, Brown Brothers Harriman Fundamental considerations are likely to dominate technical factors in the week ahead. The Federal Reserve, Bank of England and the European Central Bank meet. The PMIs are released. The first estimate of Q2 US GDP, July auto sales and the monthly employment will also be …

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Currency Positioning and Technical Outlook: Dollar Correction at Hand?

Submitted by Marc Chandler, Global Head of Currency Strategy, Brown Brothers Harriman   The US dollar rose against all the major currencies in the past week.  It seems clear that the greenback’s gains were not a reflection of domestic developments, though it is true that US data stands in stark contrast with nearly every other major country. …

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Net Speculative Positions, Technical Forecast, Week March 04: King Dollar Returns?

Submitted by Marc Chandler, Global Head of Currency Strategy, Brown Brothers Harriman The US dollar rose against all the major currencies in the past week.  It seems clear that the greenback’s gains were not a reflection of domestic developments, though it is true that US data stands in stark contrast with nearly every other major country.   …

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Net Speculative Positions, Technical Forecast, Week February 17

Submitted by Mark Chandler, from marctomarkets.com The official talk around the G7 statement and the G20 meeting generated a great deal of needless noise in the foreign exchange room. It is almost like a librarian yelling “Quiet”.   It may be more disruptive than the initial noise. With the meetings out of the way, we expect …

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Net Speculative Positions, Technical Forecast, Week February9

Submitted by Mark Chandler, from marctomarkets.com   Last week the euro was the weakest of the major currencies and the recently beaten up sterling and yen were the strongest.   A similar pattern was also evident in the dollar-bloc.  The New Zealand dollar had been the strongest and last week had was the weakest, with the …

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Net Speculative Positions, Technical Forecast, Week February4

Submitted by Mark Chandler, from marctomarkets.com   The main drivers of the foreign exchange market have strengthened.  This means that the current trends, especially euro strength and yen, sterling and dollar bloc weakness are likely to persist.  The recent price action will likely reinforce the trader behavior of buying euros on pullbacks and selling into bounces …

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Net Speculative Positions, Week January 28

Submitted by Mark Chandler, from marctomarkets.com   It is difficult to talk about the US dollar’s performance over the past couple of weeks.  There has been a key divergence.  The dollar has been trading higher against most currencies except the euro and those currencies, like the Swiss franc or the Scandis, that move in the euro’s …

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Net Speculative Positions, Week January 21

Submitted by Mark Chandler, from marctomarkets.com The technical tone of the major foreign currencies deteriorated in recent days.  It appears to be a cascading effect.  Favorite risk-on currencies, like the dollar-bloc, failed to participate in the move against the greenback.  The Swiss franc took the dubious honor of being the weakest currency last week, losing 2.2% …

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Net Speculative Positions, Week January 14

Submitted by Mark Chandler, from marctomarkets.com   There have been some large moves in the foreign exchange market in recent days.  The euro posted its largest rally in four months last week.  The yen has fallen to its lowest level against the dollar since June 2010 and extended the declining streak to nine consecutive weeks, something …

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Net Speculative Positions, Week November 19

  Submitted by Mark Chandler, from marctomarkets.com   The US Dollar Index bottomed on September 14, the day after QE3+ was announced.  It reached a 2-month high before the weekend.  It has now retraced half of the ground lost from ECB President Draghi’s pledge to “to do whatever it takes” through hints, and then delivery, of …

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Net Speculative Positions, Global Stock Markets, Week October 29

  Submitted by Mark Chandler, from marctomarkets.com   The US Dollar Index reached its best level in more than six weeks on Friday.  Yet it managed to only close a couple of ticks higher, as if warning short-term participants against ideas that a breakout is at hand.  This also appears to be the message of the …

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Net Speculative Positions, Global Stock Markets, Week October 22

  Submitted by Mark Chandler, from marctomarkets.com   Our big picture view is that the US dollar is carving out an important bottom, after selling off in Q3 as policy makers moved to reduce the extreme tail risks. The position adjustment that inspired among investors appears to have largely run its course.This bottoming of the dollar is …

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