NEW YORK, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Speculators trimmed net
bearish bets on U.S. 10-year and two-year Treasury note futures
in the latest week, according to Commodity Futures Trading
Commission data released on Friday.
Net short position in U.S. 10-year futures fell to 296,772
contracts in the week ended Nov. 29, compared with 321,256 net
shorts in the previous week, according to the CFTC's latest
Commitments of Traders data.
On the shorter end of the curve, net short positioning on
U.S. two-year note futures slid to 528,178, from net shorts of
566,995 the week before.
The decline in net short positions, or bets that Treasury
prices will fall leading to a rise in yields, was in line with
expectations that the Federal Reserve will slow the pace of its
rate hikes as it tries to engineer a softer landing for the
world's largest economy.
On Wednesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the U.S. central
bank could ease the pace of interest rate hikes "as soon as
December" but warned that the fight against inflation is far
from over.
Since the beginning of November, U.S. two-year yields have
dropped by about 70 basis points (bps), while 10-year yields
have plunged about 73 bps.
Below is a table of the speculative positions in Treasury
futures on the Chicago Board of Trade and in Eurodollar futures
on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in the latest week:
U.S. 2-year T-notes (Contracts of $200,000)
Prior week
29 Nov 2022
week
Long
156,249 168,580
Short
684,427 735,575
Net
-528,178 -566,995
U.S. 5-year T-notes (Contracts of $100,000)
Prior week
29 Nov 2022
week
Long
316,986 334,470
Short
846,335 858,124
Net
-529,349 -523,654
U.S. 10-year T-notes (Contracts of $100,000)
Prior week
29 Nov 2022
week
Long
469,072 473,384
Short
765,844 794,640
Net
-296,772 -321,256
U.S. T-bonds (Contracts of $100,000)
Prior week
29 Nov 2022
week
Long
47,371 60,382
Short
151,288 150,866
Net
-103,917 -90,484
U.S. Ultra T-bonds (Contracts of $100,000)
Prior week
29 Nov 2022
week
Long
60,228 76,599
Short
449,632 453,610
Net
-389,404 -377,011
Eurodollar (Contracts of $1,000,000)
Prior week
29 Nov 2022
week
Long
520,547 564,913
Short
2,229,899 2,390,208
Net
-1,709,352 -1,825,295
Fed funds (Contracts of $1,000,000)
Prior week
29 Nov 2022
week
Long
183,039 196,688
Short
216,891 185,515
Net
-33,852 11,173
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York
Editing by Matthew Lewis)