Currency speculators increased their bets against the dollar in the latest week, according to Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released on Friday.

The value of the U.S. dollar's net short position rose to $15.08 billion in the week ending Aug. 4, from a net short position of $13.9 billion in the week ending July 28.

Bets against the dollar were off one-year highs hit in late July, but remained elevated.

Speculators sharply cut back bets on the yen, but bets in favor of the euro, and the Australian and Canadian dollars grew in the latest week, contributing to an increase in the overall size of short dollar positions.

Speculators remained short sterling, but much less compared with the previous week.

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

Analysts said short dollar positions may decrease next week after a much stronger-than-expected U.S. jobs report pushed the dollar sharply higher across the board on Friday.

The CFTC figures showed that the market was getting very long in some currencies such as ... the Canadian dollar and the Aussie at the start of the week, said Kathy Lien, director of
currency research at GFT Forex in New York.

That helps explain the sharp reversal we saw in those pairs versus the dollar today after the payrolls report, she added.

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

(Additional reporting by Vivianne Rodrigues and Steven C. Johnson; Editing by Leslie Adler)