By Saqib Iqbal Ahmed and Laura Matthews

NEW YORK (Reuters) -The U.S. dollar has steadied since a record slide earlier this year, but many currency market players still view the greenback as locked in a bearish trend and are bracing themselves for further losses.

The dollar index fell about 11% in the six months through June in one of its steepest declines on record.

The greenback has steadied in recent weeks along with a sharp pullback in bearish futures bets. As of last week, speculators’ net short dollar position was at $5.7 billion, near the smallest since mid-April. That was down sharply from about $21 billion in late June, CFTC data show.

Many investors view this as a pause in the selling rather than a reversal. Worries include twin U.S. fiscal and trade deficits, chances that a s

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