NEW YORK: Speculators' net bearish bets on the US dollar shrank in the latest week, according to calculations by Reuters and US Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released on Friday.

The value of the net short dollar position was $27.24 billion for the week ended Oct. 13, compared with a net short position of $28.35 billion for the week before that.

US dollar positioning was derived from net contracts of International Monetary Market speculators in the Japanese yen, euro, British pound, Swiss franc and Canadian and Australian dollars.

The net short was the smallest since late July. US net shorts hit a more than nine-year high of $33.68 billion in late August.

In a wider 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 short of $27.57 billion, down from $28.56 billion a week earlier.

FX speculators have been net short the dollar since mid-March, as investors' surging appetite for riskier assets has hurt demand for the safe-haven greenback.

On Friday, the greenback was on pace to finish the week up 0.7%, its best weekly gain in three weeks.