Investing.com - The Investing.com weekly sentiment index published on Monday revealed that speculators scaled back their bullish bets on the U.S. dollar to the lowest level since November in the week ending December 18.
According to the report, 47.1% of market participants held long positions in USD/JPY as of last week, down sharply from 59.0% a week earlier.
The yen rallied more than 1% against the dollar on Friday after the Bank of Japan announced minor changes to its stimulus program but stopped short of expanding the amount of assets it buys, disappointing investors who had hoped for a more aggressive move.
Meanwhile, 33.3% of investors held long positions in EUR/USD, rising from 31.2% in the preceding week, 46.1% of investors were long GBP/USD, improving from 40.5% a week earlier, while 41.9% of investors were long USD/CHF, falling from 53.2% in the previous week.
Amongst the commodity-linked currencies, 47.7% were long USD/CAD, compared to 43.0% a week earlier, 48.1% held long positions in AUD/USD, up from 41.7% in the preceding week, while 32.5% were long NZD/USD, declining from 38.8% a week earlier.
Elsewhere, 52.1% of market participants held long positions in gold futures last week, falling slightly from 53.6% in the preceding week.
The report also showed that 43.0% of investors were long the S&P 500, compared to 41.3% 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.