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By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Speculators' net short dollar bets rose in the latest week to their largest amount since mid-October, according to calculations by Reuters and Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released on Friday.
The value of the net short dollar position, derived from net holdings of International Monetary Market speculators in the yen, euro, British pound, Swiss franc and Canadian and Australian dollars, was $11.47 billion, in the week to Jan. 23.
The previous week's net short position on the dollar was $9.59 billion.
In a wider measure of dollar positioning that includes net contracts on the New Zealand dollar, Mexican peso, Brazilian real and Russian ruble, the U.S. dollar posted a net short position valued at $14.458 billion, compared with $11.80 billion the week before.
Net short U.S. dollar contracts have increased for four straight weeks, underscoring bearish sentiment on the greenback despite the prospect of higher U.S. interest rates this year. Other major central banks, such as the European Central Bank, have been normalizing their monetary policies, boosting their currencies, specifically against the dollar.
It has been a choppy week for the dollar after U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin commented that a weak currency is good for the United States, only to backtrack after the greenback fell sharply. President Donald Trump did his own damage control, saying that the government still supports a strong dollar.
"If you take the overall stance of the U.S. administration, it's protectionist and still it's not clear what kind of dollar the president and the Treasury want, but it still doesn't sound like they really want a strong dollar given the fact that they are aiming to boost exports," said Vassili Serebriakov, currency strategist at Credit Agricole in New York.
"Ultimately when you think about the dollar, it's still in a downtrend," he said. "I don't think it changes the overall picture very much. It's still in a downtrend."
Speculators, meanwhile, pared back net short positions on bitcoin futures traded on CBOE Global Markets to 1,746contracts this week, from a record high of 2,226 the previous week, CFTC data showed.
Digital currency bitcoin has been on a highly volatile track in the last few months. After hitting an all-time high just shy of $20,000 on Dec. 17 on the Bitstamp platform, it plunged more than 50 percent in roughly a month to below $10,000.
Bitcoin has stabilized since then and was last down more than 2 percent at $10,915.77 . Japan Yen (Contracts of 12,500,000 yen) $13.926 billion
Jan. 23, 2018Prior week
week Long 37,26038,152Short 160,130 157,502Net-122,870-119,350 EURO (Contracts of 125,000 euros)$-22.245 billion
Jan. 23, 2018Prior week
week Long262,175 254,344Short 117,458 114,854Net 144,717 139,490 POUND STERLING (Contracts of 62,500 pounds sterling)-$2.891 billion
Jan. 23, 2018 Prior week
week Long 99,369 84,661Short66,324 58,457Net33,045 26,204SWISS FRANC (Contracts of 125,000 Swiss francs)$2.887 billion
Jan. 23, 2018 Prior week
week Long 14,245 14,233Short36,360 35,339Net -22,115-21,106 CANADIAN DOLLAR (Contracts of 100,000 Canadian dollars)-$1.817 billion
Jan. 23, 2018 Prior week
week Long 69,446 61,473Short46,889 43,917Net22,557 17,556 AUSTRALIAN DOLLAR (Contracts of 100,000 Aussie dollars)-$1.334 billion
Jan. 23, 2018 Prior week
week Long 63,551 50,348Short46,872 40,274Net16,679 10,074 MEXICAN PESO (Contracts of 500,000 pesos)-$1.636 billion
Jan. 23, 2018 Prior week
week Long 97,964 82,790Short36,809 35,995Net61,155 46,795 NEW ZEALAND DOLLAR (Contracts of 100,000 NZ dollars)$0.108 billion
Jan. 23, 2018 Prior week
week Long 24,620 17,795Short26,086 25,786Net-1,466 -7,991(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Additional reporting by Stephanie Kelly; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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