Speculators pare bets against U.S. dollar in latest week

NEW YORK Oct 5 (Reuters) - Currency speculators pared bets against the U.S. dollar in the latest week, retreating from its highest level in more than a year, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission released on Friday.

The value of the dollar's net short position fell to $16.31 billion in the week ended Oct. 2 from a net short of $17.96 billion the previous week, which was its largest negative dollar bet since early August last year.

To be short a currency is to bet it will decline in value, while being long is a view its value will rise.

The Reuters calculation for the aggregate U.S. dollar position is derived from net positions of International Monetary Market speculators in the yen, euro, sterling, Swiss franc, Canadian and Australian dollars.

The euro has been buoyed by the European Central Bank's bond-buying plan to lower borrowing costs for troubled euro zone nations such as Spain and Italy.

The dollar, meanwhile, have been weighed by the Federal Reserve's unveiling of another round of bond buying, called quantitative easing. The bond buying is tantamount to printing money and therefore dilutes the value of the dollar.