CFTC Commitments of Traders Report

A weekly report detailing futures and options market positions held by commercial and non-commercial traders.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Commitments of Traders (COT) report is a weekly publication that details aggregate long, short, and spread positions across U.S. futures and options markets. Published every Friday afternoon with data collected as of the preceding Tuesday, the report covers physical commodities, equity indexes, foreign currencies, and interest rate products. Market participants are grouped into distinct categories based on their primary business activities. Key categories include commercial traders, who use derivatives to hedge physical production or consumption risks, and non-commercial traders, such as hedge funds and asset managers, who trade for speculative return. By aggregating these holdings, the report shows how market exposure is distributed across various buyer and seller groups. Investors track the COT report to analyze market sentiment, positioning trends, and liquidity patterns. Because commercial hedgers usually trade against prevailing price trends to lock in prices, while speculative traders tend to follow trends, analyzing the net exposure between these groups helps identify potential market inflection points or crowded trades.

If speculative asset managers hold 120,000 long contracts and 20,000 short contracts in crude oil futures, their net speculative positioning is calculated as 120,000 - 20,000 = +100,000 contracts (net long). If total open interest across all categories is 500,000 contracts, speculative net exposure represents 100,000 / 500,000 = 20% of total market open interest.