Introduction and Classification MethodologyThe Commodity Futures Trading Commission publishes the Commitments of Traders 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 U.S Commodity Futures Trading Commission publishes statistics of the futures market on a weekly basis called the commitment of traders — COT.

It breaks down the open-interest positions of all major contracts that have more than 20 traders. The legacy COT simply shows the market for a commodity broken into long, short, and spread positions for non-commercial traders, commercial traders, and non-reportable positions . Futures, Options on Futures, Foreign Exchange and other leveraged products involves significant risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. Spot Gold and Silver contracts are not subject to regulation under the U.S. Before deciding to trade forex and commodity futures, you should carefully consider your financial objectives, level of experience and risk appetite. You should consult with appropriate counsel or other advisors on all investment, legal, or tax matters.

The https://forexdelta.net/ report is issued weekly by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission . The report, which is issued every Friday, contains the data from the previous Tuesday. This infographic is a visual guide to using the Commitment of Traders report to track the positioning of smart money within futures markets. It explains the WSC COT Index, a percentage value that indicates the relative positioning of smart money over the last three years. A value of 100% means that smart money has its highest position within the last three years, while 0% means it has its lowest position within the same period.

The traders in this category mostly are using markets to hedge business risk, whether that risk is related to foreign exchange, equities or interest rates. 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 short format shows reportable open interest and week-to-week open interest changes separately by reportable and non-reportable positions. For reportable positions, additional data is provided for commercial and non-commercial holdings, spreading , changes from the previous report, percent of open interest by category, and numbers of traders. Dealers, which are the equivalent of “producers” in the agricultural futures, is the only class of S&P traders who are usually “right” in their positions. In other words, they usually have heavy short positions at market tops and fewer shorts at market lows, just the opposite of the asset managers.

And, despite its limitations, most traders agree that even the questionable data of the COT is better than nothing. Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. 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 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.

The CoT Index: The Ultimate Smart Money Indicator In Futures Markets

Get a glimpse into the world of the “Smart Money” and see how the CoT Index can help you succeed in the futures markets. For each contract, a limit is set by the exchange on the number of open contracts a trader can have before that trader must be declared a commercial or a noncommercial. Hence, if a trader’s open interest is fewer than 200 contracts, he or she is nonreportable.

For example, traders are classified as non-commercial or commercial, and that holds for every position they have within that particular commodity. This means that an oil company with a small hedge and a much larger speculative trade on crude will have both positions show up in the commercial category. Simply put, even the disaggregated data is too aggregated to be said to accurately represent the market.

• References to Forex.com or GAIN Capital refer to GAIN Capital Holdings Inc. and its subsidiaries.
• These words can be used as inputs with Custom 1, 2, 3, and 4 Line indicators to directly display values in charts and grids in addition to using the words in your own EasyLanguage statements.
• In most of these markets the majority of the open interest in these „speculator“ positions are held by traders whose positions are large enough to meet reporting requirements.
• I’ve been using them for over 40 years now and think you’ll find them to be invaluable tools.
• This material does not and is not intended to take into account the particular financial conditions, investment objectives or requirements of individual customers.

While the information that is provided is objective, the analysis of what the data means is subjective. For example, the COT report released for the reportable position date November 29, 2022, shows that producers/merchants are short. The Commodities Futures Trading Commission , a US government independent agency, reports the Commitment of Traders report weekly. The lease is automatically extended by the respective time period unless an email is sent to and received by within 7 days, or the rent is canceled via the user area in the shop itself. Leases that have already been paid for cannot be credited towards a later purchase of AgenaTrader. Just about all of the other people out there talking about the COT reports learned about them from me or students of mine.

Are You Standing on the Right Side of the Trade?

The CFTC requires large speculators and commercial traders, or hedgers, to report their net positions twice each month. In general, the large speculator category represents fund traders and professional traders who carry large positions. The number “non-reportable” positions is derived from subtracting the number of large spec and commercial positions from the total open interest. This group of traders is generally thought to be small speculators and hedgers who are not holding a position large enough to report to the CFTC. The Commitment of Traders reports provide a breakdown of each Tuesday’s open interest for markets in which 20 or more traders hold positions equal to or above the reporting levels established by the CFTC. References to over-the-counter (“OTC”) products or swaps are made on behalf of StoneX Markets LLC (“SXM”), a member of the National Futures Association (“NFA”) and provisionally registered with the U.S.

In fact, the more it declines, the more sugar you will buy in the futures markets now, for delivery later on when you will be making candy. CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 73% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

• Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and behavioral finance.
• As a reader of TWIG, I hope you have come to understand my major objective to inspire ideas so you can hedge or trade these grains markets on your terms.
• To help you analyze important trends and movements using the Commitment of Traders reports, Tradingster.com provides up-to-date COT reports (including COT reports‘ historical data) and free COT charts.
• A value of 100% means that smart money has its highest position within the last three years, while 0% means it has its lowest position within the same period.

Members of the commercial group must have a demonstrable need for the physical commodity corresponding to the contract; he or she must be a legitimate hedger. Members of the latter group are large speculators, such as hedge funds, and need not have such physical requirements. Finally, spreaders are traders who have both long and short positions, but in different delivery months. The CFTC has gradually increased the frequency with which these reports are issued, and they are now issued each Friday, reflecting the state of the market and its traders as of the preceding Wednesday. The report also shows that swap dealers, generally financial institutions, are long cobalt futures contracts trading on the CME. Banks typically do not take an outright directional risk, which likely means they are short over-the-counter swaps and have used the futures market to hedge their short swap position exposure.

Commitments of Traders Data

It’s plain and simple, as you can see in the https://traderoom.info/ of Gold — when the red line is high and above 80% — the Commercials have been doing a relatively large amount of buying, and prices usually rally. By the same token, when the line is low — below 20% — they have been doing a relatively large amount of selling and prices usually decline. Of course, not all indicators will make money and there is always risk; you can lose as much or more than you can make on a trade.

For example, a trader holding a long put position of 500 contracts with a delta factor of 0.50 is considered to be holding a short futures-equivalent position of 250 contracts. A trader’s long and short futures-equivalent positions are added to the trader’s long and short futures positions to give „combined-long“ and „combined-short“ positions. The Commitments of Traders reports are provided by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission .

Use mouse over to display the charts and sort table by clicking its headers. It is common knowledge that Large Speculators (“Smart Money”) are holding a significant informational edge over other traders as far as fundamental supply and demand statistics are concerned. This is a fact that has also been confirmed by empirical literature (Investor Sentiment and Return Predictability in Agricultural Futures Markets”, Journal of Futures Markets, 2001). “Smart Money” is always trend-leading, whereas “Dumb Money” is trend-lagging.

SXM’s products are designed only for individuals or firms who qualify under CFTC rules as an ‘Eligible Contract Participant’ (“ECP”) and who have been accepted as customers of SXM. StoneX Financial Inc. (“SFI”) is a member of FINRA/NFA/SIPC and registered with the MSRB. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) as a Broker-Dealer and with the CFTC as a Futures Commission Merchant and Commodity Trading Adviser. References to securities trading are made on behalf of the BD Division of SFI and are intended only for an audience of institutional clients as defined by FINRA Rule 4512.

Futures

This material is short term in nature and may only relate to facts and circumstances existing at a specific time or day. Nothing in this material is financial, investment, legal, tax or other advice and no reliance should be placed on it. The exchange operator said on its website a problem with a third-party software provider prevented some market participants from reporting their daily positions for Feb. 3. COT reports are used by many speculative traders to help making decisions on whether to take a long or short position. The COT provides an overview of what the key market participants think and helps determine the likelihood of a trend continuing or coming to an end.

Values above 70% are considered positive, while values below 30% are negative. The analysis in this material is provided for information only and is not and should not be construed as an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any security. To the extent that this material discusses general market activity, industry or sector trends or other broad-based economic or political conditions, it should not be construed as research or investment advice. To the extent that it includes references to specific securities, commodities, currencies, or other instruments, those references do not constitute a recommendation by IBKR to buy, sell or hold such investments.

ION Cyber Incident Delays CFTC Commitments of Traders Report

Interestingly enough, sometimes their record is very good in specific markets, but usually they are wrong. They do not use the commodity markets to speculate or directly make money in the markets. Receive full access to all our price data and gain access to our monthly LME newsletter, packed with market tips and insights from our on-staff specialists. A COTR is produced for each metal and is published on the LME website each Tuesday reflecting positions held at close of business the previous Friday.

We give our customers the insights to trade today and plan for tomorrow. Taking the market’s pulse is an essential piece of the puzzle in attempting to gauge future price movements. Certain information from the Commitment of Traders report can help you gauge sentiment. They will eventually exit their futures positions if the change in the futures contract prices generates a significant unrealized loss. For example, if you open a new position by purchasing a cobalt futures contract and do not sell it, your futures contract is counted as part of open interest. When there are more than 25 sizeable open interest holders, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission begins to report volume and open interest information.

His proprietary system, Individual https://forexhero.info/ Participant Analysis, has an unparalleled record of success in applying COT data to futures trading. The supplemental report is the one that outlines 13 specific agricultural commodity contracts. This report shows a breakdown of open interest positions in three different categories. These categories include non-commercial, commercial, and index traders. Reportable traders that are not placed into one of the first three categories are placed into the „other reportables“ category.

The biggest weakness with the COT is that, for a document meant to promote transparency, the rules governing it are not transparent. 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. One thing the report does not do is categorize individual traders‘ positions because of legal restraints. This is part of confidential business practices, according to the commission. Department of Agriculture’s Grain Futures Administration issued an annual report outlining hedging and speculation activities in the futures market.

The information and opinions in this report are for general information use only and are not intended as an offer or solicitation with respect to the purchase or sale of any currency or CFD contract. All opinions and information contained in this report are subject to change without notice. This report has been prepared without regard to the specific investment objectives, financial situation and needs of any particular recipient.

These traders are engaged in managing and conducting organized futures trading on behalf of clients. A proven way to identify major shifts in financial markets is simply to watch closely what the so-called “Smart Money” is doing. Stay ahead of the game with WallStreetCourier’s expert analysis and tools. Our in-depth analysis of the CoT Report for 45 futures markets is giving you a comprehensive understanding of what Smart Money is doing. For example, a parent organization might not set up separately reportable trading entities to handle their different businesses or locations. In such cases, there will not be a separate Form 40 to allow the CFTC to determine that entity’s proper disaggregated commitment of traders classification.