Traders edged back from record bets on yen weakness this past week, in a period that included a likely bout of intervention by Japanese officials to support their currency.
Leveraged funds and asset managers now hold roughly a combined 174,500 contracts tied to bets the yen will fall in the weeks to come, according to the latest data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, covering the week through Tuesday. That’s a slight pullback from the week before, when speculative traders held a historically high level of yen shorts.
There was extra focus on this week’s report as a way to gauge how sharply traders had slashed their bearish yen positions after Japanese officials likely stepped in to buy the currency on Monday, causing it to rebound from a 34-year low. The initial indication is that the pullback on bearish bets was relatively shallow, although the reporting period didn’t include a second likely Japanese intervention, on Wednesday. It was the first time in more than a month that these traders trimmed their yen short stance.