Speculators' net long bets on the US dollar fell slightly in the latest week to a four-week low, according to calculations by Reuters and Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released on Friday.
The value of the net long dollar position was $26.16 billion in the week ended October 23, down from $27.64 billion the previous week. Speculators were net long dollars for a 19th straight week, after being short for 48 consecutive weeks.
To be long a currency means traders believe it will rise in value, while being short points to a bearish bias. 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 $27.14 billion, compared with a net long position valued at $28.46 billion a week earlier.
On Friday, the US dollar slipped from a two-month high hit earlier in the day after data showed the US economy slowed less than expected in the third quarter as a tariff-related drop in soybean exports was partially offset by the strongest consumer spending in nearly four years.
For the week, the dollar index was up 0.7 percent, its second straight weekly gain. "We have had things like GDP and other measures which show that the US economy is still strong," said Alfonso Esparza, senior currency analyst at Oanda in Toronto.
In the cryptocurrency market, speculators' net short position on bitcoin Cboe futures totaled 1,058 contracts, the smallest such short position since the futures launched in December last year. Bitcoin was little changed at $6,405 on the Bitstamp platform on Friday.