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Fed Fail? Traders Cut Rate-Hike Bets By The Most In History Last Week

The last two weeks have seen speculators cover over $710 billion worth of Fed rate-hike bets - the biggest move in Eurodollar futures history as Trump concerns and Fed Minutes reignite lost faith in the ebullient future that sparked the creation of a record $3 trillion bet that The Fed will be right this time.

 

Macro data has done nothing but collapse since The Fed hiked rates in March...

 

And perhaps traders are starting to realize this is anything but 'transitory' as they covered a net 711,000 Eurodollar futures in the last two weeks - the most ever...

 

And while Specs covered ED shorts, they also added to Treasury longs - pushing the aggregate Treasury complex net speculative position to its longest since August 2014 (which ended with the 30Y yield crashing from over 3.00% to below 2.25% in 3 months)

 

Speculators turned net long in 10Y US Treasury futures for the first time since July 2016, buying 301K contracts in TY equivalents over the week.

They added 122K contracts in TY taking their net longs to 363K contracts, the highest since 2007 and turned net long by 47K contracts in US, buying 54K contracts. They also pared net shorts in FV by 46K contracts and increased net longs in TN by 22K contracts. However, they sold 43K contracts in TU futures over the week.

Additionally, according to BofA, the buy-side is positioning for a June hike but with fewer follow-up hikes - they sold record 2-yr treasury, bought the most 30-yr since Oct. 2014.

Away from bond-land, the buy-side bought the most WTI Crude and Gold futures since late February. Net positon in commodities was not stretched.