Investing.com - The Investing.com weekly sentiment index published on Monday revealed that speculators scaled back their bullish yen bets in the week ending March 18.
According to the report, 45.4% of market participants held long positions in USD/JPY as of last week, rising sharply from 34.1% in the preceding week.
Meanwhile, 23.2% of investors held long positions in EUR/USD, down from 26.7% a week earlier, 46.6% of investors were long GBP/USD, compared to 32.1% in the previous week, while 46.8% of investors were long USD/CHF, falling from 48.6%.
Amongst the commodity-linked currencies, 50.3% were long USD/CAD, declining from 55.2% a week earlier, 37.3% held long positions in AUD/USD, compared to 46.1% in the preceding week, while 37.7% were long NZD/USD, rising modestly from 37.1% a week earlier.
The report also showed that 57.4% of market participants held long positions in gold futures as of last week, down from 60.5% in the preceding week.
Elsewhere, only 20.1% of investors were long the S&P 500, little changed from 19.8% a week earlier.
A reading between 50%-70% is bullish for the instrument, a reading between 30% and 50% is bearish, a reading above 70% indicates overbought conditions and a reading below 30% indicates oversold conditions.
The Investing.com series of indexes is developed in-house. Each index measures overall exposure to major currency pairs, commodities and indexes, using data from futures exchanges and OTC providers on all long and short open positions.