Speculators' net bearish bets on Eurodollar futures earlier this week fell to their lowest since February before Wednesday's rollercoaster session's stampede to exit those bets, according to Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released on Friday. Net speculative net shorts in Eurodollar futures, arguably the most widely used futures contract, fell to 915,783 contracts on Tuesday, 380,743 contracts less than 1.297 million a week earlier.
Speculators pared their net Eurodollar short positions for a fifth straight week to the lowest level since February. The cumulative two-week drop in net Eurodollar shorts, totalling just over 710,000 contracts, was the biggest since figures were available going back to 1995, according to Reuters data. Safe-haven buying of US government debt has surged since last week on fears about the global economy and expectations the Federal Reserve might postpone a possible rate increase or "liftoff" in 2015.
Weak US data on Wednesday fed those fears, sending benchmark 10-year Treasuries yield below 2 percent to its lowest level in 16 months. The bond market has normalised somewhat since Wednesday's rocky trading on record futures and options volume, according to the CME Group. Open interest on Eurodollar futures fell by a combined 781,436 contracts on Wednesday and Thursday.
"With open interest in the space remaining extremely high, this suggests that investors keep repositioning for a later liftoff in rates than previously expected," TD Securities strategist Cheng Chen wrote in a research note late on Friday. While speculators have scaled back their bets on Eurodollar futures prices to fall, they either raised their net shorts or reduced their net longs in medium-to-long dated Treasury futures in the latest week, CFTC data showed.
The amount of speculators' bearish, or short, positions in 10-year Treasury futures exceeded bullish, or long, positions by 123,168 contracts on October 14, according to the CFTC's latest Commitments of Traders data. A week earlier, speculators held 92,329 net short positions in 10-year T-note futures. After accounting for all changes in fixed income futures changes, speculative net shorts in the Treasuries market fell to $4.5 billion from $4.7 billion the previous week, TD's Chen said.
Comments
Comments are closed.