NEW YORK: Speculators’ net long bets on the US dollar fell in the latest week, according to calculations by Reuters and US Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released on Friday. The value of the net long dollar position was $18.87 billion for the week ended Jan. 4, compared with a net long position of $19.15 billion for the prior week.

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. In a wider measure of dollar positioning that includes net contracts on the New Zealand dollar, Mexican peso, Brazilian real and Russian rouble, the greenback posted a net long of $19.48 billion, down from $19.75 billion a week earlier.

The dollar was on track for its biggest daily percentage drop in six weeks on Friday on the heels of the December US jobs report that missed expectations.