Currency speculators boosted their bets against the US dollar in the latest week, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission released on Friday. The value of the dollar's net short position rose to $8.14 billion in the week ended October 16 from a net short position of $6.43 billion the previous week.
To be short a currency is to bet it will decline in value, while being long is a view its value will rise. The biggest change was in the Swiss franc as speculators tripled the size of short positions to 1,192 contracts from 306 a week earlier. Bets against the euro fell to 53,495 contracts in the latest week from 72,570. The euro zone common currency has found support lately on speculation that Spain will soon request a bailout, a step widely seen as a positive for Europe. 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.