Forex futures positioning data for the week ending February 25, 2020:
- EUR short 114K vs 92K short last week. Shorts increased by 23K
- GBP long 30K vs 29K long last week. Longs increased by 1K
- JPY short 56K vs 27K short last week. Shorts increased by 29k
- CHF long 1K vs 2K long last week. Longs decreased by 1K
- AUD short 44k vs 38K short last week. Shorts increased by 6K
- NZD short 15K vs 12K short last week. Shorts increased by 3K
- CAD long 15k vs 8K long last week. Longs increased by 7K
I think this is a clue as to why the pound was so weak late in the week. Everyone is heading to the sidelines to get a clear look at the virus and that meant closing out long GBP and short EUR positions; along with hefty, structural EUR/GBP shorts. We'll have a better idea if that was really the case with next week's data.
The rush to sell the yen in this week's data confounds me.
