Currency speculators boosted their bets in favour of the US dollar in the latest week to most since January, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission released on Friday. The value of the dollar's net long position rose to $19.58 billion in the week ended March 27, from $11.67 billion the previous week.
Shorts on the yen, on the other hand, ballooned to their highest since July 2007, according to Scotia Capital estimates. Camilla Sutton, chief currency strategist at Scotia, said there may have been capitulation on the part of investors as to where dollar/yen is headed. "In the early part of the week, dollar/yen pushed higher, thinking that the pair would go to 84 yen."
In late trading, dollar/yen was up 0.5 percent at 82.780, gaining 7.7 percent so far this year. Losses in the yen gained momentum after the Bank of Japan's recent monetary easing. To be short a currency is to bet it will decline in value, while being long is a view its value will rise. The Reuters calculation for the aggregate US dollar position is derived from net positions of International Monetary Market speculators in the yen, euro, British pound, Swiss franc, Canadian and Australian dollars.
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