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New York — According to data released by Reuters and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Friday, speculators’ net long position on the US dollar surged to its highest level since mid-June 2019.
The value of the netlong dollar position for the week ending November 30 was $ 23.99 billion, up from the previous week’s netlong of $ 22.11 billion. The US dollar’s net long positioning has risen for the second straight week.
The US dollar positioning was derived from the international currency market speculators’ net contracts between the Japanese yen, the euro, the pound sterling, the Swiss franc, and the Canadian dollar and the Australian dollar.
On a broader scale of dollar positions, including net contracts for the New Zealand dollar, Mexican peso, Brazilian real and Russian ruble, Greenback recorded a net long position of $ 24.435 billion this week, up from $ 21.964 billion last week.
US dollar netlongs have increased after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell gave hawkish testimony earlier this week, despite the emergence of highly infectious Omicron coronavirus variants.
Scotiabank said, “For all currencies covered in this report, investors are likely to have turned their attention to safety amid rising risk aversion due to the widespread adoption of the Omicron COVID-19 variant. Only the yen improved its position in the dollar. ” After the release of CFTC data.
This week’s Japanese Yen net shorts have dropped to 78,866 contracts.
In a pre-parliamentary statement, the Fed’s Powell said the risk of inflation had increased and suggested abolishing the term “temporary” to describe rising prices. He also sought to accelerate the Fed’s declining asset purchases.
The dollar index reached its highest level since July 2020 last week and ended this week almost unchanged.
Jane Foley, head of FX strategy at Rabobank in London, said it would be difficult for the dollar to record a further rise.
“This week Powell’s hawkish tone has regained the risk that the Fed could raise rates twice next year, but the market is already pricing this,” she added.
In cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin futures net short positions fell to 160 contracts last week and then swelled to 1,691 contracts, the lowest since mid-January 2019.
Like many risk assets, Bitcoin is affected by concerns about Omicron variants.
Bitcoin has fallen by more than 25% since its all-time high of $ 69,000 on November 10, with some market participants suggesting that the world’s largest cryptocurrency has entered the bear market.
On Friday, Bitcoin reached its lowest level since October 10th and finally fell 4.7% to $ 53,897.
Gertrude Chavez-by Dreyfuss
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