This summary highlights futures positions and changes made by speculators in forex, bonds and stocks up until last Tuesday, September 29.
A week were the S&P 500 took a tumble before ending up by 0.6%. Key drivers were a boost to banks led by HSBC, stronger economic reports from China and continued hopes that U.S. politicians would agree a new fiscal stimulus deal. Elsewhere the dollar traded close to unchanged against a basket of major currencies, bond yields were a tad softer while the Bloomberg Commodity Index lost 1% with all the major sectors trading lower.
The dollar traded lower against EUR, JPY and GBP but higher against every other contract on our board below. At one point during the reporting week the dollar had its best period since April and as a result, the Greenback was net bought against all ten IMM currency futures and the Dollar Index. Overall it drove an 11% reduction in the dollar short to $31 billion. One-third of the change occurred against sterling which despite trading higher by 1% on the week still saw a major reversal from a long back to a net short.