Investing.com - The Investing.com weekly sentiment index published on Tuesday revealed that speculators scaled back their bearish bets on the S&P 500 in the week ending January 1.
According to the report, 44.2% of investors were long the S&P 500, improving from 31.2% a week earlier.
Meanwhile, 30.0% of investors held long positions in EUR/USD, rising from 24.0% in the preceding week, while 43.5% of investors were long GBP/USD, compared to 38.1% a week earlier.
The report also showed that 50.0% of market participants held long positions in USD/JPY as of last week, down from 57.3% a week earlier, while 48.0% of investors were long USD/CHF, falling from 49.9% in the previous week.
Amongst the commodity-linked currencies, 51.8% were long USD/CAD, up from 48.0% a week earlier, 39.9% held long positions in AUD/USD, compared to 32.8% in the preceding week, while 36.9% were long NZD/USD, improving slightly from 35.0% a week earlier.
Elsewhere, 53.1% of market participants held long positions in gold futures last week, down from 58.4% in the preceding week.
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.