Commitment of Traders Report

As a result, a classic bullish set-up for a given market would be when large traders are net long and small traders are net short. The market will be in a weakened bullish set-up “if” the two-week trend in the large trader position is down, or in other words, if the funds are in the process of liquidating their net long position. The larger the net short position of the small trader (relative to history) and the extent that small traders are holding a position “against” the trend are factors which will add to the bullishness of the report.

Clearing members, futures commission merchants, and foreign brokers (collectively called reporting firms) file daily reports with the Commission. Those reports show the futures and option positions of traders that hold positions above specific reporting levels set by CFTC regulations. 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.

Financial Traders Reports

These figures are not netted, but instead show overall volume (that is, interest). The COT report is a weekly sentiment report that can provide forex traders with important information on the positioning of currency pairs. Issued by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) the COT report can be cross-referenced with a trader’s underlying forex strategy. Forex traders may use currency derivatives COT reports to find large net long or net short positions. Do note that this group tends to anticipate, accelerate, and amplify price changes that have been set in motion by fundamentals.

This category includes corporate treasuries, central banks, smaller banks, mortgage originators, credit unions and any other reportable traders not assigned to the other three categories. The COT report’s results can be used as a tool to give traders a better understanding of the psychology of the marketplace, the net position of the commercials in the market and the net position of the large traders. Large traders (funds) are typically trend-followers and will add or liquidate their positions depending on the technical action of the market since the release date of the report. There are many different ways to analyze the reports, but we believe that for the most part the large traders’ net position and “change in position” over a two week period are the most important numbers to watch. Keep in mind that the small trader’s net position is usually vulnerable to either long liquidation or short-covering if the market starts to move against them. Examples of these non-commercial traders include hedge funds, trading advisors, and other huge financial institutions.

Where Do You Find a COT Report?

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• These categories include non-commercial, commercial, and index traders.
• The purple area is the Daily December Futures contract subtracted by the current price.
• 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.
• CFTC staff does not know specific reasons for traders’ positions and hence this information does not factor in determining trader classifications.

But if you need details on past data, check the historical data section of the CFTC website. And if you need to check the weekly reports in a particular month, use the Historical Viewable section of the website. The reports are read as tables, which each row and column labeled appropriately (see the example above). 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. The Open Interest Chart displays Commitments of Traders %change of futures open interest , with a unique circular plotting technique, inspired from this publication Periodic Ellipses . 🔶 USAGE Open interest represents the total number of contracts that have been entered by market participants but have not yet been offset or delivered.

What is the Commitment of Traders Report?

Notice that the Blue bars are all facing up, which means the Large Speculators are buying, going long in the market. Basically, the Red guys, the big Commercials are selling their contracts to the Blue guys, the Big Speculators. Look at the little Green guys, they are the Small Speculators, guys like you and me, who are also going short, or selling, that’s why their bars are all facing down too. Hello there,
With this script, you can see CFTC COT Non Commercial and Commercial Positions together. This way, you can analyze net values ​​greater than 0 and smaller, as well as very dense and very shallow positions of producers and speculators.

• The API allows users to search and filter across columns for each of the datasets, including reporting date or week, commodity groups, subgroups, or name, and contract market name.
• It is the sole responsibility of the recipient to ascertain the terms of and comply with any local laws or regulation to which they are subject.
• This way, you can analyze net values ​​greater than 0 and smaller, as well as very dense and very shallow positions of producers and speculators.
• But if you need details on past data, check the historical data section of the CFTC website.

If you started trading in the last two decades, you’ve only known a world in which the euro is worth more than the US dollar. You’d have to go all the way back to 2002 to find data points representing the EUR/USD conversion rate that start with a zero to the left of the decimal point. If you are going to make sense of what is before you on the report, here are some terms you must understand. COT reports can be obtained from the CFTC website and can be downloaded in several file formats. By watching the behavior of these players, you’ll be able to foresee incoming changes in market sentiment.

What is Commitment of Traders?

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (Commission or CFTC) publishes the Commitments of Traders (COT) reports to help the public understand market dynamics. Specifically, the COT reports provide a breakdown of each Tuesday’s open interest for futures and options on futures markets in which 20 or more traders hold positions equal to or above the reporting levels established by the CFTC. The CFTC releases the weekly COT reports in static format to support the historical usage patterns of industry professionals viewing and accessing each week’s data. Each historical report is viewable with the data for the respective reporting week, along with all historical data compressed within an annual file.

Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and behavioral finance. Adam received his master’s in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology. He is a CFA charterholder https://g-markets.net/ as well as holding FINRA Series 7, 55 & 63 licenses. He currently researches and teaches economic sociology and the social studies of finance at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A COT Report Indicator that shows the Data for both currencies (base- and quotecurrency).

When there is a rise in the open interest of an asset, it means more people are trading the futures contract of the asset. The first place to start with is a clean understanding of ‘net positioning’ which is shown clearly on the report itself, as well as the week over week differential of major market bias (circled above). However, the original COT reports are text based and the CFTC does not provide any data analytics tools. This is meant to provide a clearer picture of what the people with skin in the game—the users of the actuals—think about the market versus the people with profit motivations or speculators.

Information that is included in the report is compiled on Tuesday and verified on Wednesday before being released every Friday. The report is intended to help people understand the dynamics of the market. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, « each Tuesday’s open interest for futures and options on futures markets in which 20 or more traders hold positions equal to or above the reporting levels established by the CFTC. » The COT reports provide a breakdown of each Tuesday’s open interest for futures and options on futures markets in which 20 or more traders hold positions equal to or above the reporting levels established by the CFTC.

Open interest is the total of all futures and/or option contracts entered into and not yet offset by a transaction. The aggregate of all long open interest is equal to the aggregate of all short open interest. The CFTC then corrects and verifies the data for commitment of traders forex release by Friday afternoon. The Barchart site’s data is then updated, after the official CFTC release. Open interest is the total of all futures and/or option contracts entered into and not yet offset by a transaction, by delivery, by exercise, etc.

The Three Trading Groups Present In The COT Report

And, despite its limitations, most traders agree that even the questionable data of the COT is better than nothing. Department of Agriculture’s Grain Futures Administration issued an annual report outlining hedging and speculation activities in the futures market. In the 1990s, the report moved to a bi-weekly publication before going weekly in 2000.