Currency speculators pared bets against the US dollar and pumped up bets in favour of the Swiss franc to the highest in nine weeks, weekly data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed on Friday. The value of the net short dollar position fell to $12.2 billion in the week to January 22 from $16.3 billion the prior week.
The aggregate US dollar position is derived from the net positions of International Monetary Market speculators in yen, euro, British pound, Swiss franc, Canadian and Australian dollars. Speculators also showed a tendency to favour low-yield, safe-haven currencies such as the Swiss franc and slashed long positions in the higher-yielding euro and Australian dollar.