Does somebody now how to read this chart? It seems that the only value it would have is if one could discern how the small spec. is positioned. Why was there such a gap between the large and commercial specs. in the 2005-2008 EUR bull market? This chart was taken from timingcharts.com
1) Small speculators are being driven out of the market and allocating their money to other funds, who would be categorized as large speculators. This seems congruent with the growth in assets of managed funds during that time frame. 2) It also means that more and more of today's large speculators are behaving more like "dumb" money instead of "smart" money as they were perceived to be in the recent past. 3) It's better to imitate the commercial users instead of fading the small speculators.
How I see it is that during that period large speculators were aligned with the markets, were holding long contracts, while commercials were short the contracts mainly for hedging purposes. But similar to the COT oil fut reports it the picture can be hugely biased because of a misrepresentation of being commerical or speculator.
I cant say I understand a word of what the other posters described. But the question...can you read this chart ...and what could it mean in the whole scheme of things...I might pose these thoughts. From a technical analysis point of view, the chart shows monumental abberations, the giant plunge from 160 to the present, but before that the monumental rise up to 160 from the 148 range...I remember the feeling watching it blast thru 152 without pause,a big abberation, not normal..... since that time, as I observed the price action technically,day to day, minute to minute really, since I have no other life these days, ...got to 'see' the evidence of moments where the Big Boy/Central Bank/Game controllers manipulate the market. That, along with watching those moments of fundamental new announcements,and bank controller decisions,causing major manipulation of the world economy...is all reflected in the chart. When Trichet said"...a higher and ever rising Euro is not necessarily good for europe.." around mid-april 2008, the euro immediately held from its upward rush (april 10-14 area) and plunged to that spike down on april 18. When the U.S. housing bubble burst in the summer, and whatever other secret manipulations took place behind government closed doors,to save the dying dollar,and the dying U.S. empire from collapsing...down goes the euro,down goes oil,down goes gold,then the bank bailouts, and all the bizarre twisted manipulations and taking over of the terminal ecomonic corrupt system ...which is where we are at now. Thats what this chart says. even now, the last play of friday...euro bolting up 250 pips in 15 mionutes, from 126 to 12850....was a complete set up if you were looking closely at the trendlines, sma's etc in technical analysis...all indicators were pointing to a closing triangle terminal in the 126 area. There's so much manipulation these days in all markets,by desperate governments, it's very hard to know which way anything will turn and for how long. Thats my thought, and I know almost nothing....