NEW YORK: US dollar net short positioning fell in the latest week to the smallest short position since June 2018, according to calculations by Reuters and Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released on Friday. The value of the net short dollar position dropped to $6.088 billion in the week ended April 13, from $6.103 billion the previous week. Short bets on the greenback have declined for seven straight weeks.

Net positions in the dollar were last long just before the start of the coronavirus pandemic. US dollar positioning was derived from net contracts of International Monetary Market speculators in the Japanese yen, euro, British pound and Swiss franc, as well as the 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 greenback posted a net short position of $5.711 billion this week, from net shorts of $7.747 billion the week before.

Higher Treasury yields in the first quarter helped the dollar rebound, after it had slumped through much of 2020. But the move in yields has stabilized since April 1 and the US dollar has fallen with it. That move, however, has yet to show up in speculative positioning. Against a basket of six rival currencies, the US dollar was down 0.71% for the week, its second consecutive weekly fall. The dollar index is up 1.73% in the year to date, compared with a decline of nearly 7% last year.