Speculators slightly trimmed bets in favour of the US dollar in the latest week, and bolstered net shorts on the euro to their largest level in 2 -1/2 years, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission released on Friday. The value of the dollar's net long position inched lower to $46.22 billion in the week ended January 20, from $46.96 billion the previous week. Despite the slight decline, net long dollars have hit at least $40 billion for a fourth straight week.
To be long a currency is to take a view it will rise, while being short is a bet its value will decline. Net euro shorts were 180,730 contracts, equivalent to $26.1 billion. That was the largest net short on the euro since June 2012. Investors had been selling the euro in the last few weeks as they positioned for the start of the European Central Bank's quantitative easing, which it finally announced on Thursday. The ECB plan called for the purchase of 60 billion euros in euro zone bond purchases.
Another big mover were Swiss franc net shorts - slashed by more than half to 9,809 contracts or equivalent to $1.4 billion. That was the smallest net short since the week of December 21. The decline in franc net shorts was a reaction to the Swiss National Bank's removal of the three-year old cap on the currency last week. 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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