NEW YORK - Speculators boosted their net long bets on the U.S. dollar to a seven-week high in the latest week, according to calculations by Reuters and U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released on Friday.

The value of the net long dollar position was $14.78 billion for the week ended Feb. 18, up from $13.94 billion last week. That is the largest net long dollar position this year.

U.S. 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 U.S. dollar posted a net long position valued at $11.183 billion, up from $9.694 billion a week earlier.

On Friday, the U.S. dollar fell across the board after a survey of purchasing managers showed U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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.

Japanese Yen (Contracts of 12,500,000 yen) $3.097 billion

18 Feb 2020 Prior week

week Long 58,605 54,805 Short 85,826 80,993 Net -27,221 -26,188

EURO (Contracts of 125,000 euros) $12.343 billion

18 Feb 2020 Prior week

week Long 170,586 169,475 Short 262,093 255,144 Net -91,507 -85,669

POUND STERLING (Contracts of 62,500 pounds sterling) $-2.377 billion

18 Feb 2020 Prior week

week Long 72,784 65,006 Short 43,526 43,922 Net 29,258 21,084

SWISS FRANC (Contracts of 125,000 Swiss francs) $-0.196 billion

18 Feb 2020 Prior week

week Long 17,057 15,937 Short 15,516 12,170 Net 1,541 3,767

CANADIAN DOLLAR (Contracts of 100,000 Canadian dollars) $-0.59 billion

18 Feb 2020 Prior week

week Long 61,559 68,225 Short 53,742 58,520 Net 7,817 9,705

AUSTRALIAN DOLLAR (Contracts of 100,000 Aussie dollars) $2.505 billion

18 Feb 2020 Prior week

week Long 47,989 48,188 Short 85,466 80,856 Net -37,477 -32,668

MEXICAN PESO (Contracts of 500,000 pesos) $-4.123 billion

18 Feb 2020 Prior week

week Long 192,345 193,940 Short 39,063 37,614 Net 153,282 156,326

NEW ZEALAND DOLLAR (Contracts of 100,000 New Zealand dollars) $0.778 billion

18 Feb 2020 Prior week

week Long 17,485 19,893 Short 29,672 23,969 Net -12,187 -4,076

(Reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed;Editing by Sandra Maler and Tom Brown) ((saqib.ahmed@thomsonreuters.com; @SaqibReports; +1 646 223 6054; Reuters Messaging: saqib.ahmed.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))