The latest Commitments of Traders report was released, covering positions through Tuesday
The 3-Year Min/Max Screen shows that "smart money" hedgers mostly moderated their extreme positions. The only contract showing a new extreme was coffee, where hedgers are holding the 2nd-most short contracts in history. The Backtest Engine shows coffee was unable to hold any rallies when hedgers held more than 50,000 contracts net short. As a percentage of open interest, it's still extreme, with still-negative forward returns but it's not as consistent. Hedgers are still holding a large net long in 30-year Treasury bonds, but are net short 10-year Treasuries. The only precedent is July 2006 - July 2007 when they had a similar position as bonds meandered then took off to the upside. Hedgers remain long the U.S. dollar, while being extremely short many commodities like copper, soybeans, and just agriculture contracts in general. They backed off their equity index exposure a bit but are still holding a curiously large net long position worth an estimated $22.9 billion.
