Quarterly Outlook
Fixed Income Outlook: Bonds Hit Reset. A New Equilibrium Emerges
Althea Spinozzi
Head of Fixed Income Strategy
Head of Commodity Strategy
Summary: Our weekly Commitment of Traders update highlights future positions and changes made by hedge funds and other speculators across commodities and forex during the week to Monday, July 3, one day shorter than usual due to last weeks US holiday. A week that saw bond yields, the dollar and stocks all rise while the commodity sector delivered a mixed week with speculators focusing on crude oil, natural gas and gold while slumping corn prices triggered a reversal back to a net short position
The COT reports are issued by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the ICE Exchange Europe for Brent crude oil and gas oil. They are released every Friday after the U.S. close with data from the week ending the previous Tuesday. They break down the open interest in futures markets into different groups of users depending on the asset class.
Commodities: Producer/Merchant/Processor/User, Swap dealers, Managed Money and other
Financials: Dealer/Intermediary; Asset Manager/Institutional; Leveraged Funds and other
Forex: A broad breakdown between commercial and non-commercial (speculators)
The main reasons why we focus primarily on the behavior of speculators, such as hedge funds and trend-following CTA's are:
Do note that this group tends to anticipate, accelerate, and amplify price changes that have been set in motion by fundamentals. Being followers of momentum, this strategy often sees this group of traders buy into strength and sell into weakness, meaning that they are often found holding the biggest long near the peak of a cycle or the biggest short position ahead of a through in the market.
This summary highlights futures positions and changes made by hedge funds across commodities and forex during a US holiday shortened reporting week to last Monday, July 3. A puzzling week that on one hand saw bond yields, especially at the front end of the curve, rise strongly in anticipation of a hawkish FOMC continuing to raise rates, while at the same time not preventing US and global stocks from making strong gains. A positive sentiment that prevailed until last Wednesday when minutes from the latest FOMC meeting signaled a strong consensus to implement further rate increases.
In the week to July 3, the Bloomberg Commodity Index traded close to unchanged following a mixed week that saw strong gains in crude oil and fuel products, soybeans, softs, and livestock being offset by losses elsewhere, led by natural gas, corn, wheat, and coffee.
Selling and buying was split evenly between the 24 major futures contracts tracked in this, with the overall result being a small 4% reduction in the net long back below 1 million contracts, primarily driven by heavy selling of sugar and corn, the latter seeing a sharp reversal back to a net short position. Net selling also hurt platinum group metals and copper, as well as soybeans while buyers concentrated their interest in crude oil, natural gas, gold, cocoa and livestock.
Disclaimer
The Saxo Bank Group entities each provide execution-only service and access to Analysis permitting a person to view and/or use content available on or via the website. This content is not intended to and does not change or expand on the execution-only service. Such access and use are at all times subject to (i) The Terms of Use; (ii) Full Disclaimer; (iii) The Risk Warning; (iv) the Rules of Engagement and (v) Notices applying to Saxo News & Research and/or its content in addition (where relevant) to the terms governing the use of hyperlinks on the website of a member of the Saxo Bank Group by which access to Saxo News & Research is gained. Such content is therefore provided as no more than information. In particular no advice is intended to be provided or to be relied on as provided nor endorsed by any Saxo Bank Group entity; nor is it to be construed as solicitation or an incentive provided to subscribe for or sell or purchase any financial instrument. All trading or investments you make must be pursuant to your own unprompted and informed self-directed decision. As such no Saxo Bank Group entity will have or be liable for any losses that you may sustain as a result of any investment decision made in reliance on information which is available on Saxo News & Research or as a result of the use of the Saxo News & Research. Orders given and trades effected are deemed intended to be given or effected for the account of the customer with the Saxo Bank Group entity operating in the jurisdiction in which the customer resides and/or with whom the customer opened and maintains his/her trading account. Saxo News & Research does not contain (and should not be construed as containing) financial, investment, tax or trading advice or advice of any sort offered, recommended or endorsed by Saxo Bank Group and should not be construed as a record of our trading prices, or as an offer, incentive or solicitation for the subscription, sale or purchase in any financial instrument. To the extent that any content is construed as investment research, you must note and accept that the content was not intended to and has not been prepared in accordance with legal requirements designed to promote the independence of investment research and as such, would be considered as a marketing communication under relevant laws.
Please read our disclaimers:
- Notification on Non-Independent Investment Research (https://www.home.saxo/legal/niird/notification)
- Full disclaimer (https://www.home.saxo/en-gb/legal/disclaimer/saxo-disclaimer)