Speculative traders' long positions in US 10-year Treasury futures retreated from a seven-month high, after they booked profits on some of them earlier this week, Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released on Friday showed.
Speculative long positions in 10-year note futures slipped to 178,256 contracts on Tuesday from 186,513 last week, which was the highest level since December, according to the CFTC's latest Commitments of Traders data. While these long bets fell, there was an increase in the latest week in short bets that speculate 10-year bond prices will fall.
Net short positions, which measure speculators' short bets in CBOT l0-year T-note futures over long ones, rose to 144,529, the most in three weeks. Ten-year net shorts reached a record high of 274,733 on April 13. Speculative traders raised their overall "short" bets on 10-year T-notes to 322,785 on Tuesday, up 30,115 from a week ago.
The September 10-year T-note ended down 15/32 on the day at 122-23/32 in late trading on Friday, two days after posting a contract high of 123-24/32. In the cash market, the yield on 10-year Treasury note rose 6 basis points at 2.99 percent after nearing a 15-month low on Wednesday.