PIPONOMICS · ISSUE 05 · MONDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2026 · COT AS OF OCT 13
The door is open and the Big Guys are still leaning on it, 82% short the Loonie and holding more Yen shorts than at any point in this letter’s run. This week is the undercard - Canada and UK CPI, and a USD/JPY count landing with price parked on the bottom of its lid. The main event runs October 28 to November 6 - six central banks, a UK budget, a US midterm and payrolls - and whoever built that calendar has a mean streak.
01 THE LEDGER
What This Is: every call from October 12, scored against what price did. Misses and losses go first; with none this week, the closest calls lead.
HIT, soft - GBP/JPY downside idea from 208.79. Closed 210.60, 181 pips against and ten pips under the 210.7 wrong-if. Still live.
HIT, with a footnote - AUD/USD support at 0.6902, Thursday October 15. Low 0.6894, eight pips through. Closed 0.6922, back above it. Scored on the close.
HIT - March 2 gap counts, Tuesday October 13, scored as a window. The dollar turned the next day: EUR/USD and GBP/USD made their lows on Wednesday, USD/JPY and AUD/USD their highs for the week.
HIT - GBP/USD support at 1.3135 to 1.3140, Wednesday October 14. Low 1.3137. Held, and bounced 235 pips by Friday.
HIT - GBP/USD downside idea from 1.3395, reached the support band. Closed at 1.3137 for 258 pips. Marked to Friday’s close, it would have been 66.
HIT - GBP/JPY resistance at 210.30 to 210.70, Wednesday October 14. High 210.31, then 195 pips lower the same session. Friday traded 27 pips above the zone and closed back inside at 210.60. Five holds in six tests. A weekly close above 210.70 scores it as failed.
HIT - EUR/USD downside idea from 1.1380. 141 pips on. The week’s high, 1.1270, was 122 pips under the 1.1391 wrong-if.
HIT - EUR/JPY downside idea from 178.34. 75 pips on. Wednesday’s low held seven pips above the October 5 low, and the week’s high was 143 pips under the 179.4 wrong-if.
HIT - AUD/USD downside idea from 0.6948. Two pips on. Wednesday traded 13 pips above 0.7000 and closed below it, 30 pips short of the 0.7043 wrong-if.
HIT - USD/JPY range at 158.0 to 158.9. Four closes inside it. 157.4 held by 15 pips, and the 156.0 trigger for a downside idea never came close.
HIT - The weekly stretch. Six of seven pairs closed some of the gap to their weekly Tenkan-Sen. AUD/USD widened.
HIT - NZD/USD death zone, watched. The low, 0.5565, came on day 54 from the August high, and the week closed up for the first time in eight, 88 pips off the low.
HIT - Platinum and silver, watched. Neither closed above its daily Cloud. Both closed below the bears’ levels, 1,594 and 58.50, on Wednesday.
HIT - The corridor, September 23 to October 19, closes today. It covered GBP/USD’s break of the July closing low on day one, the Yen gap count on October 1, the 1998 highs on October 7 and Wednesday’s dollar turn.
02 THE PILE-UP
What This Is: who is crowded, and how badly - CFTC futures-only positioning as of October 13. The write-up covers the biggest moves and the most lopsided positions; the chart has the rest.
The Big Guys are hedge funds and CTAs, called Managed Money in the metals report. Retail is the small-account row beneath them on the chart.
Each bar is one group’s own position, split long against short. Never one group netted against another. “Was” is the prior week.
Tuesday was a dollar day on every row but two. The Big Guys bought 43,000 contracts’ worth of dollars against the Euro, Loonie, Yen and Pound, the fourth straight report on that side. Then Wednesday happened.
Loonie, 82% short - the most lopsided trade on the board. The Big Guys hold 23,811 longs against 111,923 shorts after four reports of adding shorts and a week of dumping 7,871 longs. They have all six stones now. In the second movie the people who got dusted came back, and the Bank of Canada meets on the 28th.
Euro, 61% short, from 57% - the biggest position change of the week. 15,346 longs sold and 8,394 shorts added, 23,740 contracts in one report, the largest single-week move against the Euro in this letter’s run. At 308,000 contracts it is also the biggest book on the board.
Kiwi, 62% short, from 50/50 - the biggest swing in balance. 9,771 longs sold, 36% of the long book, one session before NZD/USD made its low. If you are going to capitulate, the bottom is traditionally the place for it, and the Kiwi crowd found it with the precision of a man stepping on the one rake in an empty field.
Gold, 88% long - the most lopsided position in metals. 2,354 longs sold and 1,544 shorts added, and the short side has more than doubled in three weeks, to 17,658 from 8,310. The exit is getting wider and nobody has walked through it yet.
Copper, 82% long, barely moved this week. Palladium, 75% short, added 2,133 shorts, its fifth straight week of adding.
03 THE APPOINTMENT BOOK
What This Is: the dates when a market is most likely to turn, and what to watch on them.
One pair at a time. Each count runs forward from a turning point that held and was retested.
GBP/USD - watch October 26 and November 6 to 10. Those are the next two dates where its own cycles point to a turn. October 26 comes with a level, 1.2775, but price is 554 pips away, so treat it as a date to watch, not a level to expect. If Wednesday’s low at 1.3137 holds and gets retested, it starts new counts landing November 27 to 30 and January 12.
USD/JPY - watch October 21 to 22. It is the first count off the 163.98 top. Date only, no level.
EUR/USD and NZD/USD - same clock. Both topped August 21 and both bottomed October 14, 54 days later, inside the 49-to-56-day window where moves tend to run out of road.
October 23 to November 6 - the next stretch to circle. It lands on 12 anniversaries of major turns, including the 15th of USD/JPY’s record low on October 31, 2011 and the 18th of the 2008 crash’s second wave, and it carries six central bank decisions, a UK budget, a US midterm and payrolls. Expect volatility; this letter is not taking a side on it.
Where the two agree. These are the days when a pair’s own cycle count lands on an old anniversary - two unrelated methods pointing at the same date.
The next stretch has 17 of them across 14 pairs. Two stand out: October 26 to 27 for the Yen pairs, and October 28, the Fed’s afternoon, when the same count that landed a day before last week’s dollar turn comes due again. Dates only, no levels.
04 PRICE AND TIME
What This Is: Gann’s Square of Nine turns a major high or low into price levels where moves tend to stall and dates when turns tend to come.
GBP/USD - support at 1.3135 to 1.3140 held. Wednesday’s low was 1.3137. The next levels up are 1.3317, 12 pips under Friday’s close, and 1.3500.
GBP/JPY - resistance at 210.30 to 210.70. It has held five of six tests, and a second calculation, the Square of Nine level at 210.23, sits right under it. A weekly close above 210.70 means it failed. The Black Knight has lost both arms and both legs and is calling it a draw.
EUR/USD - support at 1.1050 to 1.1063, untested. Wednesday’s low stopped 50 pips above it. Friday closed nine pips above a new level at 1.1230, and the next level up is 1.1398, seven pips from the 1.1391 wrong-if.
AUD/USD - next support 0.6819. EUR/JPY - next supports 175.2 and 171.0, with the monthly Kijun-Sen at 171.4 sitting on the second. USD/JPY - resistance at 160.0 and support at 156.0, neither touched in four weeks.
Watch these levels on these dates. EUR/JPY at 179.0 on October 30, 141 pips above price, the morning the Bank of Japan decides. GBP/JPY at 211.0 on November 5, 40 pips above price, the day the Bank of England decides. GBP/USD at 1.2775 on October 26 and USD/JPY at 152.6 on October 29 are too far from price to expect a touch, so those are turn dates only.
Two more get a final check on October 30. AUD/JPY at 108.5 on October 31 is 125 pips away, close enough to watch as a level. CAD/JPY at 109.4 on November 5 is 235 pips away, so for now it is a date only.
05 MONEY WHERE THE MOUTH IS
What This Is: the charts worth an opinion this month, each with the level that proves it wrong. Charts are OANDA data via TradingView, through Friday’s close. DPO and Composite Index readings are on this letter’s settings.
EUR/USD - downside idea stands, 141 pips on, and this week it is being defended rather than pressed.
Closed 1.1239, up 37 on the week. The fourth weekly close under the Cloud and the first of the four to finish higher than the week before.
Wednesday’s low at 1.1113 stopped 50 pips above the floor at 1.1063. The Bridge of Khazad-dûm is 50 pips off and nobody has said the Balrog’s name.
Wednesday closed at 1.1157, four pips under the bears’ giddy line at 1.1161. One session of giddy, then Thursday: a trap with a hot CPI stapled to it.
The time side: the move’s two lows came on day 45 from the August 21 high at 1.1712, the 45-degree count, and day 54, the back of the death zone - the same day NZD/USD bottomed. Neither date was written down in advance for EUR/USD, so neither gets scored.
On the daily, Thursday was the first close above the Tenkan-Sen since September 9, after 25 straight under it. The daily Kijun-Sen is 1.1365, 26 pips under the wrong-if, and the daily Cloud sits from 1.1532 to 1.1611.
The weekly structure has not changed: under the Cloud, Tenkan-Sen at 1.1412 under the Kijun-Sen at 1.1455, the Chikou Span under its candles. An up week inside a down structure is a correction until the Tenkan-Sen says otherwise.
Bears get giddy under 1.1113. Bulls are looking at 1.1391 and 1.1412 - the wrong-if and the Tenkan-Sen, 21 pips apart - and a weekly close above both ends this idea. Between 1.1113 and 1.1391 this is an idea that already walked most of the way to its floor and is now standing still, which is allowed. Wrong if the weekly close is back above 1.1391. Unchanged.
GBP/USD - the downside idea reached its level and is closed. Watched from here.
1.3329, up 95 pips on the week in the widest weekly range in two months.
Friday’s high at 1.3372 stopped 28 pips short of 1.3400.
What replaces the idea is a question: does the band hold a second test, or does 1.3400 go first? The weekly Tenkan-Sen at 1.3406 is stacked six pips above it, and the Pound crowd is 55% long with the small accounts 62% short against it. Bulls are looking for a weekly close above 1.3406. Bears want the band to break and are not getting a hearing above 1.3287, the July closing low. Nothing committed until one of those happens.
GBP/JPY - downside idea, live from 208.79, 181 pips against, standing by ten pips.
Closed 210.60: pierced on the high, held on the close, and the highest weekly close since the week of August 31. The idea underneath has been wrong for three weeks and has not yet been proven wrong, which is the least comfortable place an idea can be.
The November 5 appointment at 211.0 is 40 pips overhead, with the Bank of England the same day. Last week this letter called an appointment above a downside idea a date with a bounce. The bounce came three weeks early and 261 pips big, from Wednesday’s low to Friday’s high.
October is up 0.9%, with the monthly Tenkan-Sen at 213.3 overhead and the Kijun-Sen at 201.7 the closest support. The monthly DPO closed September under zero and the Composite Index is at its near-term support zone from 2018. A monthly close above the Tenkan-Sen would change the picture; a green October on its own does not.
Bears get nervous here. Bulls are not interested until a weekly close above 211.0, and then they have the Tenkan-Sen, 265 pips above Friday’s close, to look at. Wrong if a weekly close is back above 210.7. Unchanged, and if next Friday closes above it this line goes on the Ledger as a LOSS of 191 pips or more, with the 210.30 to 210.70 resistance scored as failed. Written down now so it cannot be softened later.
EUR/JPY - downside idea, live from 178.34, 75 pips on, in the same range for a third week.
Closed 177.59. The week was 176.29 to 177.97, inside October’s 176.22 to 179.32.
The low held seven pips above October’s, and the bears did not get their close under 176.22.
The monthly is where it was: down 0.4% in October after September’s 3.9%, the Tenkan-Sen at 182.1 overhead, the Kijun-Sen at 171.4 the next support and nothing in between that the chart recognizes. The monthly DPO closed September under zero and the Composite Index is approaching its historical support zone. Three weeks of range have not changed a monthly reading, which is what three weeks of range are supposed to not do.
Bears get giddy under 176.22 and have the three-quarter rotation at 175.2 next. Bulls have the October 30 appointment at 179.0, 141 pips up, and the wrong-if 40 pips above that. Wrong if a weekly close is back above 179.4. Unchanged.
AUD/USD - downside idea, live from 0.6948, two pips on, and the one pair the dollar won.
Closed 0.6946 after a 119-pip week that went up on Wednesday and down on Thursday.
The pair visited both of its levels and closed inside both: 13 pips through 0.7000 on Wednesday, eight through 0.6902 on Thursday.
The crowd is 70% long. Bears get interested under 0.6922, Thursday’s close, and giddy under 0.6894; bulls are still watching 0.7000 and still do not have a close above it. The next rotation down is 0.6819. The RBA decides November 3. Wrong if the weekly close is back above 0.7043. Unchanged.
USD/JPY - nothing yet, and the lid has started forwarding its mail.
158.00. Four closes inside 158 to 158.9, Thursday one pip under it, Friday on it.
Two weeks inside the lid, and price is now sitting on its bottom edge, which is the kind of precision that usually comes just before a decision.
The Yen crowd is 60% short and adding shorts rather than quitting longs, while USD/JPY closed 31 pips lower - the Euro and Kiwi picture, a week behind.
Seventh weekly close under the Kijun-Sen at 158.44, and the fourth straight week with the high above it and the close below. The Tenkan-Sen at 156.64 is the first thing under price, with the weekly Cloud’s top two pips beneath it. The July 30 to September 1 look-alike is a month old and still looks alike.
The downside conditional stands: a daily close under 156.0 with that crowd in place is the idea. Bulls are comfortable above 158.0 and would get a real argument from a weekly close above 158.44, which has not happened since the week of August 24. Bears get interested under 157.4 and giddy under 156.0. The 90-degree count lands Wednesday and Thursday, count only.
NZD/USD - topside idea, a bounce with a destination, live from Monday’s open.
0.5653. The first topside idea in five issues, and it is on the Kiwi.
The case: seven weekly candles down, the eighth closed up, the low at 0.5565 came on day 54 inside the death zone, the weekly Composite Index and DPO went into the week at historical support, and the Kiwi crowd sold 36% of its longs one session before the low. Every box ticked, and the crowd ticked the last one itself.
The destination is the weekly Tenkan-Sen and Kijun-Sen at 0.5777 to 0.5780, 123 pips above Friday’s close, and the idea ends there whether or not price keeps going. The weekly structure above the lines is still bearish, so nothing above 0.5780 is this letter’s business.
Yes, this is a dollar-down idea sitting underneath a dollar-up idea in EUR/USD. The EUR/USD idea is three weeks old and defending a floor it got within 50 pips of. The Kiwi idea is new and leaning into a turn that the stretch card, the death zone and the crowd all pointed at. If the Kiwi is right, EUR/USD’s wrong-if at 1.1391 is where that gets found out, and the letter would rather carry both and let the levels sort it than pretend the dollar board moves as one piece. It did not this week. AUD/USD proved that.
Bulls are looking for the lines. Bears get interested again under 0.5565 and not before. Wrong if a weekly close is under 0.5565, Wednesday’s low.
NZD/JPY - watched, not an idea, and 28 pips from losing its signal.
89.31, up 44 on the week. The weekly bearish signal from September 28 is three weeks old and the Cloud’s bottom at 89.59 is 28 pips overhead.
The monthly is still inside its own Cloud, the no-trade zone, and the higher timeframe wins, so this stays a watch even with the Kiwi bounce above it. The Tenkan-Sen at 91.67 and Kijun-Sen at 91.79 are the lid on anything beyond the Cloud.
Bears get giddy on a weekly close under 88.12, which Thursday’s 88.29 stayed 17 pips above. A weekly close back above 89.59 and the signal is gone.
The crosses - three Aussie legs and a Kiwi one.
Thursday October 15 was the Aussie’s day: AUD/USD lost 86 pips high to low, AUD/CAD 136, and EUR/AUD and GBP/AUD rallied 270 and 314. GBP/NZD is the Kiwi leg, stretched the other way.
AUD/CAD - downside idea, live from Monday’s open.
0.9821. Thursday confirmed the ideal bearish Ichimoku signal on the daily chart, the first since August 20, and Friday held it.
Thursday closed at 0.9817 under the Cloud, the Tenkan-Sen at 0.9883 under the Kijun-Sen at 0.9902, the Chikou Span under its candles - all three on one close, 23 days after the September 22 top at parity, 1.0013. A 136-pip session that closed 107 pips under its open. None of the bodies the Chikou Span meets over the next eight sessions is lower than 0.9913, so it stays clear as long as price stays down here.
The crowd is the reason this is an idea and not a watch. The Aussie crowd is 70% long the Aussie and the Loonie crowd 82% short the Loonie: long AUD/CAD from both ends, and the ideal bearish signal arrived against it. The Bank of Canada and the RBA both decide inside the idea’s life, treated as volatility.
The wheel off the parity top: 45 degrees is 0.9855, which Friday’s high tested from underneath and closed under; 90 degrees is 0.9699, 122 pips down; 135 degrees is 0.9544. The counts off September 22: 45 days lands November 6, the day after the triple, and 90 days December 21. Counts only, no levels attached.
Bears get giddy under Thursday’s low at 0.9791. Bulls get a hearing on a daily close back above the Cloud’s bottom at 0.9873. Wrong if a daily close is back above the Kijun-Sen at 0.9902.
EUR/AUD - watched, a two-year low and a thin runway for the Chikou Span.
1.6180, 225 pips off Wednesday’s 1.5955, the lowest in a sample that starts in April 2024.
The weekly has been the ideal bearish structure for 39 weeks and still is, but from the week of October 26 the Chikou Span gets compared against thin May bodies 50 to 99 pips above Friday’s close, with the weekly DPO leaning on zero. One more session like Thursday would put it through.
The time side: the low came 553 days from the April 9, 2025 top at 1.8559, five days past the 18-month mark. The wheel off the low: 45 degrees is 1.6155, which Friday closed 25 pips above, and 90 degrees is 1.6357, with the Kijun-Sen at 1.6287 sitting between them.
The crowd is 61% short the Euro and 70% long the Aussie: short EUR/AUD from both ends, at a two-year low, into a reversal week. Bulls get a topside idea on a weekly close above the Kijun-Sen at 1.6287. Bears get giddy on a weekly close under 1.5955 and are otherwise waiting to find out which side of Thursday they were on.
GBP/AUD - watched, two of three.
1.9189. The Chikou Span closed above the candle bodies for the first time since September 2025, and the Tenkan-Sen is over the Kijun-Sen.
The missing piece is a weekly close above the Cloud, whose bottom is 1.9316, 127 pips up, with the wheel’s 180-degree rung at 1.9411 just past it.
Thursday was a 314-pip session that closed 258 pips above its open, and Friday closed two pips under the 135-degree rung off the May 15 low, 1.9191.
Bulls get a topside idea on a weekly close above 1.9316. Bears are not interested above 1.8942, which keeps the Chikou Span clear through November - and 1.9037 if the signal has not completed by December. The Pound crowd is 55% long and the Aussie crowd 70% long, so the crowd has no opinion on this cross, which is the one kind of crowd this letter does not have to argue with.
GBP/NZD - watched, with a downside conditional.
2.3577, and three weekly closes inside eight pips of each other, the three highest in the sample.
They sit 351 pips above the weekly Tenkan-Sen, with the weekly Composite Index and DPO at historical resistance.
The daily candles still look healthy; the daily DPO closed under zero anyway.
The crowd is long GBP/NZD from both ends, and the Kiwi end just capitulated into a bounce. The wheel off Tuesday’s high at 2.3668: 45 degrees is 2.3425, and 90 degrees is 2.3184, 42 pips under the weekly Tenkan-Sen, so the wheel and the line are nearly the same number.
The conditional: a downside idea on a daily close under Friday’s low at 2.3490, and not before, because a stretched chart with healthy candles can stay stretched for weeks. Bulls are comfortable above 2.3668 and nervous under the daily Tenkan-Sen at 2.3579. Wrong if the conditional fires and a daily close is then back above 2.3668.
The weekly stretch - six of seven gaps closed some.
Metals - neither Cloud was closed above, and silver paid six percent for the wait.
Platinum closed the week at 1,619, down 3.2%, under the Tenkan-Sen at 1,648, with the Kijun-Sen at 1,711 and the Cloud from 1,737 to 1,812.
Bulls are looking for a daily close back above the Tenkan-Sen before the Cloud is a conversation again. Bears are comfortable under 1,648 and get giddy under 1,582.
Silver: 56.97, down 6.3% on the week. Wednesday went through 58.50 to 55.40 in one session, and the Cloud from 63.0 to 65.9 is a long way overhead. Same shape as platinum, bigger number.
The small accounts hold 67% more silver longs than the Big Guys, which is the wrong order for a breakout to start in. Bulls want a daily close above 58.64 first and the Cloud a long time after that. Bears get giddy under 55.40. Everyone else got their answer this week and it was no.
06 THE WEEK AHEAD
What This Is: the radar through November 5, in the order it arrives.
Monday October 19. The corridor closes with today’s session, and ordinary time resumes. Canada’s CPI lands with the Loonie crowd 82% short and AUD/CAD one session into an idea.
Wednesday to Thursday, October 21 to 22. USD/JPY’s 90-degree count off the 163.98 top, with price on the bottom of the lid. UK CPI on the 21st, for a Pound that just bounced 235 pips.
Friday October 23. Japan’s CPI overnight. Positioning data for October 20 - whether the Euro crowd keeps selling, whether the Kiwi crowd keeps quitting with price already off the low, and whether the Aussie crowd starts leaving after Thursday.
Monday October 26. GBP/USD’s count at 1.2775, a date only, scored as a window. The Yen range bars hit 180 days on the 26th and 27th.
Wednesday to Friday, October 28 to 30. The Fed, a UK budget and the Bank of Canada on Wednesday - the same afternoon the March 2 gap set hits 240 days, with AUD/CAD carrying the Loonie crowd’s 82% short into the decision. The ECB and US GDP on Thursday, with USD/JPY’s 152.6 date scored as a window. The Bank of Japan on Friday morning, with EUR/JPY’s appointment at 179.0 the same morning, 141 pips above price, and AUD/JPY and CAD/JPY get their last rule check at Friday’s close. The one stretch on this list that gets the badge.
Tuesday November 3. The RBA decides with the Aussie crowd 70% long, and the US votes.
Thursday November 5. GBP/JPY’s full year at 211.0 closes out the triple, with the Bank of England at noon London time and payrolls the next morning. An idea’s wrong-if, a resistance zone, a Gann date and a central bank, all inside 40 pips. AUD/CAD’s 45-day count lands the day after.
For information only. Not investment advice. Currency and futures trading carries substantial risk of loss. Do your own due diligence before acting on anything in this letter.
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