ANZ on CFTC data - Leveraged funds were net sellers of USD for the seventh straight week

In brief:

• Leveraged funds were net sellers of USD for the seventh straight week.
• Commodity currencies were in strong demand, led by the AUD.
• The Japanese yen bucked the trend, with leveraged funds increasing their net short JPY positions by USD1.4bn to USD4.3bn
• Funds continued to hold overall net short positions against the EUR despite positive price action in the single currency. However, overall net short positions were reduced slightly by USD0.1bn to USD1.4bn
• MXN buying slowed down from the previous week with funds adding a modest USD0.1bn to take their net MXN longs to USD2bn
• Fund positioning on gold and crude oil continued to diverge

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ANZ on this US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data, they look at it a little differently than you'll see elsewhere (this is a severely curtailed methodological summary ... any errors are mine):

• There are two reports compiled by the CFTC: the Commitment of Traders (COT) and the Traders in Financial Futures (TFF)
• The TFF report provides a richer breakdown of traders into the 'sell side' and 'buy side'
• ANZ use the parts of the TFF report (combined futures and options position of Leveraged Funds) as a proxy for leveraged positioning, where available