(Adds comment, details, table, byline)
By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK, April 6 (Reuters) - Speculators' net short U.S.
dollar bets fell for a second straight week, according to
calculations by Reuters and Commodity Futures Trading Commission
data released on Friday.
The value of the net short dollar position was $20.71
billion in the week to April 3, compared with $21.73 billion in
the previous week. The market has been short the dollar since
the middle of July last year.
U.S. 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 rouble, the U.S. dollar posted a net
short position valued at $24.966 billion, down slightly from
$25.868 billion the week before.
Dollar positioning was consistent with the currency's
recovery over the last two weeks, posting gains of about 0.7
percent. For the year, though, the dollar remained down more
than 2 percent.
Traders, however, believed this week's moves in the futures
market were a result of position adjustment after accumulating
extreme shorts on the dollar in the last few months.
Overall, the dollar's outlook continued to be weak.
The trade dispute between the United States and China has
hurt the dollar's prospects, obscuring any benefit derived from
a Federal Reserve that's on a tightening path.
"By the middle of next year, we think that the prospect of
slower growth in the U.S. economy will bring the Fed's
tightening cycle to an end while other major central banks are
closer to, or in the process of, tightening policy," Oliver
Jones, markets economist, at Capital Economics said.
"This would probably see the gap in expected interest rates
between the US and other advanced economies move against the
dollar."
In other currency pairs, dollar/yen positioning switched to
a net long of 3,572 contracts this week
Meanwhile, speculators' net short position on bitcoin Cboe
futures rose to 1,786 contracts from 1,490 the
previous week, the data showed.
Bitcoin continues to slide, down 2.4 percent at $6,606.70
on Friday on the Bitstamp platform, after hitting a
record high just shy of $20,000 in December last year. It has
lost more than 50 percent of its value in 2018, with other
crypto currencies such as ether and ripple also hurt by
regulatory scrutiny around the world.
Japanese Yen (Contracts of 12,500,000 yen)
$-0.419 billion
April 3, 2018 Prior week
week
Long 48,053 56,544
Short 44,481 60,212
Net 3,572 -3,668
EURO (Contracts of 125,000 euros)
$-20.609 billion
April 3, 2018 Prior week
week
Long 221,327 234,656
Short 86,946 93,592
Net 134,381 141,064
POUND STERLING (Contracts of 62,500 pounds sterling)
$-3.544 billion
April 3, 2018 Prior week
week
Long 86,643 90,239
Short 46,305 56,063
Net 40,338 34,176
SWISS FRANC (Contracts of 125,000 Swiss francs)
$1.292 billion
April 3, 2018 Prior week
week
Long 17,908 15,992
Short 27,819 25,437
Net -9,911 -9,445
CANADIAN DOLLAR (Contracts of 100,000 Canadian dollars)
$2.489 billion
April 3, 2018 Prior week
week
Long 29,558 33,518
Short 61,430 60,568
Net -31,872 -27,050
AUSTRALIAN DOLLAR (Contracts of 100,000 Aussie dollars)
$0.006 billion
April 3, 2018 Prior week
week
Long 46,152 51,072
Short 46,227 42,998
Net -75 8,074
MEXICAN PESO (Contracts of 500,000 pesos)
$-2.719 billion
April 3, 2018 Prior week
week
Long 136,812 130,264
Short 37,732 40,477
Net 99,080 89,787
NEW ZEALAND DOLLAR (Contracts of 100,000 New Zealand dollars)
$-1.333 billion
April 3, 2018 Prior week
week
Long 32,948 32,749
Short 14,571 14,510
Net 18,377 18,239
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
Editing by Susan Thomas)