The weekly report details trader positions in most of the futures contract markets in the United States. The Commitments of Traders is a weekly market report issued by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) enumerating the holdings of participants in various futures markets in the United States. It is collated by the CFTC from submissions from traders in the market and covers positions in futures on grains, cattle, financial instruments, metals, petroleum and other commodities.
What Is the Commitments of Traders (COT) Report?
The overall net position of the non-commercial traders can be a big clue as to where the markets are going. Looking at the COT example in the table above, we can see that Nasdaq 100 futures, traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) had an open interest of 57,779 contracts on June 15, 2021. Of these, 14,320 were longs held by dealers and 10,875 shorts sold by institutional traders. The COT also delineates the number of contracts involved in spreads. 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.
Commitments of Traders
The spread number needs to be added to be both long and short sides, respectively. If you are doing these calculations on the Combined file, the sum of the long and or short positions may be +1 or -1 Open Interest, due to option delta calculations. Generally, the data in the COT reports is from Tuesday and released Friday. The CFTC receives the data from the reporting firms on Wednesday morning and then corrects and verifies the data for release by Friday afternoon.
COMMITMENTS OF TRADERS COT REPORTS FREE
In this article, we will discuss what COT reports are and how to read them correctly. The spreadsheet is excellent and will be a valuable tool in my trading. Before starting Trading Heroes in 2007, I used to work at the trading desk of a hedge fund, for one of the largest banks in the world and at an IBM Premier Business Partner. A chart like this is probably quite a bit sasol company different from what you are used to seeing when it comes to COT reports. Finally, the last section shows how much of the open interest is controlled by large traders.
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- COT reports are used by many speculative traders to help making decisions on whether to take a long or short position.
- Because the COT measures the net long and short positions taken by speculative traders and commercial traders, it is a great resource to gauge how heavily these market players are positioned in the market.
- The aggregate of all long open interest is equal to the aggregate of all short open interest.
- The COT report focuses on traders whose positions meet or exceed the CFTC’s established reporting levels.
- The Legacy and Disaggregated reports are available in both a short and long format.
Forex traders may use currency derivatives COT reports to find large net long or net short positions. Analyzing case studies of how other traders have utilized the COT report to identify trends and sentiment can be helpful. By examining https://www.psg.co.za/ instances where COT data, combined with other analyses, led to accurate trades, traders can refine their own COT integration strategies and potentially avoid common pitfalls.
The Commitments of Traders (COT) reports are provided by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). COT 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. For the “producer/merchant/processor/user” category, open interest is reported only by long or short positions. The computed amount of https://www.sanlam.co.za/ spreading is calculated as the number of offsetting futures in different calendar months or offsetting futures and options in the same or different calendar months. Any residual long or short position is reported in the long or short column.
Extreme readings in net positions (either very high longs or shorts) can indicate a market nearing a turning point. However, these extremes can persist for a while, and the COT report shouldn’t be used for short-term trading signals. This guide is perfect for traders who are new to the market or looking to expand their knowledge of market analysis.
The COT report focuses on traders whose positions meet or exceed the CFTC’s established reporting levels. This captured data allows analysts to assess market sentiment and positioning. By understanding which types of traders (such as commercials, speculators. etc.) hold large long or short positions, the traders reports can provide clues about potential future market movements.
After that, then next row of data shows the percentage of open interest for each type of trader. In this screenshot, the largest positions are held by the long swap dealers. 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.