The Commitments of Traders Report: Who Is Betting on Higher or Lower Prices
Published · 2 min read
Market commentary often says things like "funds hold a record short in wheat". The source is almost always the Commitments of Traders report, published weekly by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). It shows who holds the open positions in US futures and options markets - not individual names, but groups of traders. This site does not display the report itself; it is free on the CFTC website.
What it contains and when
The CFTC publishes the report every Friday afternoon (US Eastern time), with positions as of the preceding Tuesday. It covers US exchanges such as CBOT for grains and oilseeds and ICE Futures US for coffee, cocoa, sugar and cotton, in versions for futures alone and for futures and options combined. For each market it lists how many contracts each group holds long (betting on or protecting against higher prices) and short (the opposite), and the total open interest. Euronext publishes a comparable weekly report for its own commodity contracts, including milling wheat and rapeseed.
Who the groups are
For agricultural markets the most-used version is the Disaggregated report. It separates producers, merchants, processors and users - farmers, grain traders, millers, feed and food companies that hedge physical business - from swap dealers, from "managed money" such as hedge funds and commodity trading advisers, and from other large traders. Commercial hedgers are typically net short in crops, because they are selling forward what is grown or stored. Managed money moves in and out with price trends and news, and its net position - longs minus shorts - is what headlines usually quote.
How to read it - and what it cannot tell you
A large net short by funds means many speculative positions will need to be bought back at some point; some traders therefore read extreme positioning as a sign that a move is stretched and could reverse sharply if the news turns. But positioning can stay extreme for weeks or months, and the data are already three days old when published. The report describes who is on which side of the market, not why, and not what happens next. Used alongside supply and demand data - harvests, stocks, the WASDE - it helps explain why prices sometimes move more than the news seems to justify.
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Frequently Asked Questions
- When is the COT report published?
- Every Friday afternoon US Eastern time, with positions as of the preceding Tuesday. Publication moves when there is a US federal holiday.
- What does "managed money" mean?
- A group in the Disaggregated COT report covering hedge funds, commodity pool operators and commodity trading advisers - traders managing money for others, as opposed to firms hedging physical business.
- Can the COT report predict prices?
- No. It shows how positions are distributed, which helps explain market moves and how crowded a trade is, but extreme positions can persist and the data are three days old when published.