Speculators pare net shorts on U.S. 10-year, two-year note futures -CFTC

Speculators trimmed net bearish bets on U.S. 10-year and two-year Treasury note futures in the latest week, according to Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released on Friday.

Net short position in U.S. 10-year futures fell to 296,772 contracts in the week ended Nov. 29, compared with 321,256 net shorts in the previous week, according to the CFTC's latest Commitments of Traders data. (0#1CFTCCBT)

On the shorter end of the curve, net short positioning on U.S. two-year note futures slid to 528,178, from net shorts of 566,995 the week before.

The decline in net short positions, or bets that Treasury prices will fall leading to a rise in yields, was in line with expectations that the Federal Reserve will slow the pace of its rate hikes as it tries to engineer a softer landing for the world's largest economy.

On Wednesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the U.S. central bank could ease the pace of interest rate hikes "as soon as December" but warned that the fight against inflation is far from over.

Since the beginning of November, U.S. two-year yields have dropped by about 70 basis points (bps), while 10-year yields have plunged about 73 bps.

Below is a table of the speculative positions in Treasury futures on the Chicago Board of Trade and in Eurodollar futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in the latest week:

U.S. 2-year T-notes (Contracts of $200,000)

U.S. 5-year T-notes (Contracts of $100,000)

U.S. 10-year T-notes (Contracts of $100,000)

U.S. T-bonds (Contracts of $100,000)

U.S. Ultra T-bonds (Contracts of $100,000)

Eurodollar (Contracts of $1,000,000)

Fed funds (Contracts of $1,000,000)