Commitments of Traders

Although it is published on Friday, the report contains trading data from the previous Tuesday. If your portfolio includes oil, mining, or other commodity-linked stocks, it’s worth watching the underlying markets. By showing when different groups of traders have more bearish or bullish outlooks, COT numbers can provide valuable context for market analysis. The reports can also provide tools for analyzing market sentiment and forecasting potential price movements. Reports are based on data supplied by brokers (or, in futures industry lingo, “futures commission merchants”), and by other parties, including futures exchanges. The CFTC publishes COT reports “to help the public understand market dynamics,” according to the regulator.

Market Pulse

For instance, near significant market bottoms, it’s common to find Commercials at extreme net long levels while Non-Commercials are simultaneously at extreme net short levels. Divergences occur when price action and the positioning of key trader groups move in opposite directions. Many charting platforms automate this, showing positions relative to historical highs and lows or using percentile ranks. Calculate the Net Position for the key groups (especially Commercials and Non-Commercials/Leveraged Funds) by subtracting their total Short positions from their total Long positions. Pay close attention to the columns indicating the change from the previous week and the number of traders in each group. They then use the futures market primarily to hedge the net risk exposure they gain from these swap transactions.

Reportable traders that are not placed into one of the first three categories are placed into the “other reportables” category. A “money manager,” for the purpose of this report, is a registered commodity trading advisor (CTA); a registered commodity pool operator (CPO); or an unregistered fund identified by CFTC. The Legacy and Disaggregated reports are available in both a short and long format. Disaggregated — The Disaggregated reports are broken down by agriculture, petroleum and products, natural gas and products, electricity and metals and other physical contracts. The COT Public Reporting Environment (PRE) provides an application programming interface (API) to allow users to customize their experience with the COT market report data. How do I get a token to access the COT reports via API from the public reporting environment?

With this index, you can clearly see if the participants are extremely long or short with their net positions. The COT Index brings the actual net positions in perspective to the historical net position data. For that, we calculate the net positions of every market participant.

Different Formats of the COT Report

• CFTC.gov sample of COT Futures Only Chicago Board of Trade (short form); December 12, 2006
• There are numerous other factors related to the markets in general or to the implementation of any specific trading program which cannot be fully accounted for in the preparation of hypothetical performance results and all which can adversely affect trading results.
• In October 2022, CFTC began publishing weekly and historical report data within a public reporting environment to support industry professionals needing to customize, search, filter, and download report data for analysis and trends.
• What does this COT data mean, and how do I use it?
• The CFTC publishes the COT Reports based upon data we get from the reporting entities.
• Nonetheless, a multi-functional organization that has more than one trading entity may have each trading entity classified separately in a commodity.
• COT reports are used by many speculative traders to help making decisions on whether to take a long or short position.

The COT data is from Tuesday, and is released Friday by the CFTC. Dates indicate the report date and not the release date. Department of Agriculture’s Grain Futures Administration started regularly publishing a Commitments of Traders report.

How to Interpret the COT Data

But while the CFTC claims to be agnostic, financial professionals who parse COT data can come to their own conclusions about what these traders—speculators, in particular—are up to and use that information to gauge market sentiment and strength or weakness in trends. For investors who are curious about the futures markets—or just interested in how commodities trading works—the COT report offers a snapshot of who’s buying and selling. It’s called the Commitments of Traders (COT) report, a weekly rundown of what the biggest players are doing in the markets for crude oil, grain, metals, and other commodities, as well as financial-based instruments such as Treasury futures.

The information in the report indicates how much interest there is, both long and short, in various derivatives contracts, and which type of market actor is involved. It provides a deeper breakdown of the market participants, splitting commercial traders into producers, merchants, processors, users, and swap dealers. If commercial and non-commercial long positions are both growing, for example, that is a bullish signal for the price of the underlying commodity. Traders can use the report to help them determine which positions they should take in their trades, whether that’s a short or a long position. It is used by many futures traders as a market signal on which to trade.

• The last step in the process of effectively using COT reports is “interpretation”.
• This OFR monitor is presented solely for informative purposes and should not be relied upon for financial decisions; it is not intended to provide any investment or financial advice.
• The short format shows reportable open interest and week-to-week open interest changes separately by reportable and non-reportable positions.
• As one would expect, the largest positions are held by commercial traders who provide a commodity or instrument to the market or have bought a contract to take delivery of it.
• Likewise, short-call and long-put open interest are converted to short futures-equivalent open interest.

Of these, 14,320 were longs held by dealers and 10,875 shorts sold by institutional traders. The disaggregated COT report is another one that is commonly known by traders. These categories include non-commercial, commercial, and index traders. This report shows a breakdown of open interest positions in three different categories. The supplemental report is the one that outlines 13 specific agricultural commodity contracts.

This is where getting the commitment of traders report explained becomes so valuable. This sample is from the December 12, 2006, COT report (short format), published in the traditional format, showing data for the Chicago Board of Trade’s (CBT) wheat futures contract. Current and historical Commitments of beaxy exchange review Traders data is available on CFTC.gov, as is historical COT data going back to 1986 for Futures-Only reports, to 1995 for option-and-futures-combined reports, and to 2006 for the Supplemental report. The short report shows open interest separately by reportable and nonreportable positions. Department of Agriculture’s Grain Futures Administration (predecessor to the USDA Commodity Exchange Authority, in turn the predecessor to the CFTC), published its first comprehensive annual report of hedging and speculation in regulated futures markets. Recent news reported an increase in the net long positions held by currency speculators in Pound futures.

The report provides the data, which is visualized in graphical form. When a consolidated report is not published by the CFTC, but the contracts are fungible, we calculate a consolidated report. Where available, we use the consolidated reports as published by the CFTC. By pricing convention, short-term interest rate (STIR) contracts have a constant DV01 (dollar value of a one basis point change in the underlying interest rate). Leveraged Funds are typically hedge funds and various types of money managers, including registered commodity trading advisors (CTAs), registered commodity pool operators (CPOs), and unregistered funds identified by CFTC. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) publishes the Commitments of Traders questrade forex reports (COT), including the Traders in Financial Futures report (TFF).

Reports Dated January 20, 2026 – Current Disaggregated Reports:

Numerous studies have shown that the Commitment of Traders (COT) Report is a valuable tool for traders and analysts. By locking in prices, they aim to ensure financial stability regardless of market volatility. They use futures contracts to hedge against potential price drops in their crops. A hedge fund analyzes market conditions and economic indicators to forecast price movements in oil futures.

Non-reportable positions represent smaller traders whose positions do not meet the CFTC’s reporting thresholds. The TFF Report is essential for understanding the positions and activities in the financial futures markets. As a rule, the aggregate of all traders’ positions reported to the CFTC represents 70 to 90 percent of the total open interest in any given market.2

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Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and financial exchanges have taken multiple measures over the years to provide greater market transparency for investors. It includes four report types, Legacy, Supplemental, Disaggregated, and Traders in Financial Futures, each offering varying detail on trader activity. COT reports can be obtained from the CFTC website and can be downloaded in several file formats. The reports are read as tables, which each row and column labeled appropriately (see the example above).

In October 2022, CFTC began publishing weekly and historical report data within a public reporting environment to support industry professionals needing to customize, search, filter, and download report data for analysis and trends. Each historical report is viewable with the data for the respective reporting week, along with all historical data compressed within an annual file. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (Commission or CFTC) publishes the Commitments of Traders (COT) reports to help the public understand market dynamics. Select market data provided by ICE hycm broker review Data Services.

For instance, traders are labeled as non-commercial or commercial for all positions in a commodity. Markets are only included if 20 or more traders hold positions equal to or above the reporting levels established by the CFTC and the respective exchanges. COT reports are used by many speculative traders to help making decisions on whether to take a long or short position. The Nonreportable Positions are just the difference between the positions of reported traders and the long and short open interest of a future. For example, a financial organization trading in financial futures may have a banking entity whose positions are classified as commercial and have a separate money-management entity whose positions are classified as non-commercial. The aggregate of all traders’ positions reported to the Commission usually represents 70 to 90 percent of the total open interest in any given market.

This view helps analysts and traders understand the behavior and intentions of different market participants. This report provides a detailed view of the open interest and positions in major agricultural products, such as corn, soybeans, and wheat. This transparency helps traders and analysts understand market dynamics and make informed decisions. Among the several popular trading publications is the COT report, which is a crucial resource for anyone involved in futures trading. There is also participation in these markets by speculators who are not able to deliver on the contract or who have no need for the underlying commodity or instrument.

Select reference data provided by FactSet. For example, the ability to withstand losses or to adhere to a particular trading program in spite of trading losses are material points which can also adversely affect actual trading results. Risk capital is money that can be lost without jeopardizing ones’ financial security or life style. Futures and forex trading contains substantial risk and is not for every investor. StocksToTrade in no way warrants the solvency, financial condition, or investment advisability of any of the securities mentioned in communications or websites.

These are typically hedge funds and various types of money managers, including registered commodity trading advisors (CTAs); registered commodity pool operators (CPOs) or unregistered funds identified by CFTC. They tend to have matched books or offset their risk across markets and clients. Though they may not predominately sell futures, they do design and sell various financial assets to clients. These are essentially clients of the sell-side participants who use the markets to invest, hedge, manage risk, speculate or change the term structure or duration of their assets. Typically, these are dealers and intermediaries that earn commissions on selling financial products, capturing bid/offer spreads and otherwise accommodating clients.

So, understanding what is the commitment of traders report shows for currency futures gives spot traders valuable, correlated sentiment information. While extreme positioning revealed in the commitment of traders report explained often correlates with major turning points, these conditions can last for weeks or months before a reversal actually happens. Effective use of the commitment of traders report explained involves layering its insights onto your existing market analysis framework. Once you have the data and understand the players, the next step in mastering the commitment of traders report explained is interpretation. This broad category includes large market participants who trade futures contracts strictly for profit, without an underlying business need for the physical commodity or financial instrument. Knowing these formats helps you select the most relevant data for your analysis, making the commitment of traders report explained more precise.