Speculators' net long bets on the US dollar fell modestly in the latest week to $29.25 billion, according to calculations by Reuters and Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released on Friday. The value of the net long dollar position from the prior week was $29.48 billion, the highest since December.
To be long a currency means traders believe it will rise in value, while being short points to a bearish bias. The speculative market has been long on the dollar since mid-June last year.
US dollar positioning was derived from net contracts of International Monetary Market speculators in the 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 ruble, the US dollar posted a net long position valued at $24.22 billion, compared with $25.122 billion the previous week.
Elsewhere, the most radical shifts were in the New Zealand and Canadian dollars. In New Zealand, net short positions decreased to minus 202 from minus 1,124 in the previous week. The data recorded captures the seven-day period to Tuesday, March 26, just prior to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's signal of a possible interest-rate cut.
Net short positions in the Canadian dollar decreased to minus 39,571 from minus 47,774. Bullish bets on the loonie may increase again in the current period, after a Statistics Canada report Friday showed that the Canadian economy grew by 0.3 percent in January from December, fully offsetting the declines of the last two months.