Due to the 35-day partial US government shutdown, the CFTC stopped releasing the data but resumed this week, starting with the figures for the week of Dec. 24, 2018. US dollar positioning was derived from net contracts of International Monetary Market speculators in the yen, euro, British pound, Swiss franc and Canadian and Australian dollars.
In a broader measure of dollar positioning that includes net contracts on the New Zealand dollar, Mexican peso, Brazilian real, and Russian ruble, the US dollar posted a net long position of $32.03 billion as of Dec. 24, 2018, compared with $28.77 billion, a week earlier. The dollar had gained the last few weeks of December 2018 on safe-haven flows amid persistent equity market volatility and as the market braced for the partial US government shutdown.
In the cryptocurrency market, speculators' net short position on bitcoin Cboe futures totaled 1,142 contracts in the week ended Dec. 24, down from 1,342 the previous week. Bitcoin remains entrenched in a deep slump, which began early last year. On Friday, bitcoin was up 0.9 percent at $3,442.90 on the Bistamp platform. It has dropped roughly 82 percent since soaring to an all-time high of nearly $20,000 in December 2017.