Speculators boosted their net long bets on the US dollar to a seven-week high in the latest week, according to calculations by Reuters and US Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released on Friday. The value of the net long dollar position was $14.78 billion for the week ended February 18, up from $13.94 billion last week. That is the largest net long dollar position this year.

US dollar positioning was derived from net contracts of International Monetary Market speculators in the Japanese yen, euro, British pound, Swiss franc and Canadian and Australian dollars.

Being long a currency means traders believe it will rise in value, while being short points to a bearish bias. 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 $11.183 billion, up from $9.694 billion a week earlier.

On Friday, the US dollar fell across the board after a survey of purchasing managers showed US business activity in the manufacturing and services sectors stalled in February and as investors fretted over the fast-spreading coronavirus.

Against a basket of six other currencies, the US dollar was down 0.5%. For the week, the greenback logged a gain of 0.2%, its third consecutive weekly gain. The dollar has outperformed most currencies this year as global investors poured money into US stocks and bonds amid expectations the United States will be less vulnerable to economic fallout from the coronavirus, which already threatens to dent China's growth rate and push Japan and the eurozone into recession.