NEW YORK (Reuters) – Speculators’ net long positioning on the U.S. dollar fell in the latest week, according to calculations by Reuters and U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released on Friday.
The value of the net long dollar position slid to $14.13 billion for the week ended April 5, from $16.11 billion the previous week. U.S. dollar net long positioning declined for the first time in five weeks.
The U.S. dollar positioning was derived from net contracts of International Monetary Market speculators in the Japanese yen, euro, British pound, Swiss franc, as well as Canadian and Australian dollars.
So far this year, the dollar index, a measure of the greenback’s value against six major currencies, has gained 4.4%, after a 6.3% gain in 2021.
The greenback has benefited all year from safe-haven flows during the war in Ukraine, as well as expectations of aggressive Federal Reserve tightening to control the surge in inflation.
U.S. rate futures have priced in an 85% chance of a 50 basis point hike at the May meeting, with roughly 220 basis points of cumulative hikes for 2022.
In cryptocurrencies, speculators reduced net short positioning on bitcoin to 244 contracts in the week ending April 5, compared with net shorts of 271 the week, CFTC data showed.
Bitcoin has stabilized above $40,000 after an up and down last couple of months, with the Ukraine war and soaring inflation as backdrop. The world’s largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization has behaved more like a risk asset.
So far this year, bitcoin has fallen more than 7% versus the dollar. It was last down 1.5% at $42,822.
Japanese Yen (Contracts of 12,500,000 yen)
EURO (Contracts of 125,000 euros)
POUND STERLING (Contracts of 62,500 pounds sterling)
SWISS FRANC (Contracts of 125,000 Swiss francs)
CANADIAN DOLLAR (Contracts of 100,000 Canadian dollars)
AUSTRALIAN DOLLAR (Contracts of 100,000 Aussie dollars)
MEXICAN PESO (Contracts of 500,000 pesos)
NEW ZEALAND DOLLAR (Contracts of 100,000 New Zealand dollars)
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by David Gregorio)
Copyright 2022 Thomson Reuters.
