USD net longs climbed to multi-month tops

These are the main highlights of the latest CFTC report on positioning in the week ended on August 21:

• Investors pushed further their USD net longs to levels last seen in early May 2017, all amidst ongoing concerns on the US-China trade front and the turmoil in the EM FX space, particularly on events stemming from Turkey. It will be interesting to see the performance of the buck in upcoming weeks as market participants start to factor in renewed US political jitters and rising speculations on the flattening yield curve.
• On the EUR-side, speculators remained short for yet another week amidst a passive/steady ECB, Italian politics and potential contagion of the Turkish Lira crisis.
• The increasing likeliness of a ‘no deal’ scenario in the Brexit negotiations continued to impact on the Sterling, taking net longs to their highest level since May 2 2017.
• VIX net longs fell to 4-week lows. In fact, investors reduced their net short positions in the ‘panic index’ in response to an increasing better mood in the risk complex.