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What is the COT Report?

Every week, the CFTC publishes the Commitments of Traders report. It shows how different participant groups are positioned in futures markets. This dashboard uses the disaggregated Financial COT ("Traders in Financial Futures") for indices, currencies, and rates, and the Disaggregated COT for commodities — both provide a more precise breakdown than the legacy report.

For financial instruments, the primary signal comes from Leveraged Funds (hedge funds and commodity trading advisors). For commodities, it's Managed Money (registered CPOs and CTAs). These are more precise than the old "Non-Commercial" bucket, which lumped together very different types of traders. The legacy data is still shown as a reference in the raw stats.

Your 5-Step Monday Routine

1. Check the verdict — Are they adding longs or shorts? That's your weekly wind direction.
2. Check the crowding — Is everyone already on the same side? Extremes mean reversal risk. Middle ground means more room to run.
3. Check the peers — Do the other instruments in the same group confirm? Agreement = cleaner signal. Divergence = trade smaller.
4. Look at the chart — See the big picture of price vs positioning over 2 years.
5. Check macro context last — Use it as background framing, not as the primary signal. COT positioning comes first here.

Key Concepts

Net Position (Leveraged Funds / Managed Money)

Longs minus shorts for the primary speculative category. Positive = specs net long (bullish bias). Negative = net short (bearish bias). Unlike the old Non-Commercial bucket, this isolates actual directional speculators from passive institutional flows.

Weekly Change

How much the net position shifted this week. This is the impulse — the fresh money coming in or going out. The level can stay extreme for months; the delta tells you what's happening right now.

Participant Types

Leveraged Funds: Hedge funds and CTAs — directional, trend-following. The primary signal.
Asset Manager: Pensions, endowments — structural positions, slow to change.
Dealer/Intermediary: Large banks — typically the other side of the leveraged-fund trade.
When Leveraged Funds and Asset Managers agree, the signal is cleaner.

Crowding (Percentile)

Where the current net position sits relative to history. 90th = very crowded long (reversal risk). 10th = very crowded short (squeeze risk). 50th = balanced.

Price Since Report

Did price actually follow the signal since the last report? If funds were bullish and price went up — confirmed. If price went the opposite way — either price will reverse, or the funds are about to unwind.

Gas Score

How energetic this week's move was, 0–100. High gas = big conviction move. Low gas = quiet week, little to read into.

Peer Confirmation

Do instruments in the same market group agree? For indices: do ES, YM, RTY agree with NQ? For currencies: do other majors agree? More agreement = cleaner signal.

What This Is NOT

• This is NOT an entry signal. COT data is a week old by the time you see it.
• This is NOT order flow. It's weekly positioning snapshots, not real-time tape.
• This is NOT a guarantee. Smart money can be wrong. Often is, at turns.

Think of it like checking the weather before leaving the house. It doesn't tell you exactly when it'll rain — but if the forecast says "thunderstorms," maybe don't wear flip-flops.