What the report contains
For each market with enough traders, the CFTC reports open interest and the long and short positions of each group of large traders, plus the remainder held by small traders. Positions are published as futures only and as futures and options combined.
Trader categories
The disaggregated report, the standard for agricultural markets since 2009, splits large traders into four groups:
- Producer/merchant/processor/user: farmers, merchants and processors hedging physical business
- Swap dealers: banks and dealers, including index-fund exposure
- Managed money: hedge funds and CTAs, the group usually called speculators
- Other reportables: other large traders
Legacy and supplemental reports
The older legacy report uses two groups, commercials and non-commercials. The supplemental report adds index traders for 13 agricultural markets.
How analysts use it
The most watched number is managed money's net position, longs minus shorts. Analysts compare it with its own history: an extreme net long means much of the buying may already be done, and an extreme short sets up the risk of short covering. Weekly changes show whether funds are adding or cutting, and comparing position changes with price changes hints at whether those positions are making or losing money.
The report is a lagging snapshot, three days old when published, so it works best as context alongside fundamentals, weather and price action.
COT dashboards in Kommody
Kommody turns the report into dashboards for every major contract: speculator KPIs, historical positions, seasonality, estimated P&L and mean entry price for each group, and a nowcast of positioning before the next Friday release. Its dashboards use the legacy categories, where non-commercials play the role of speculators.
Frequently asked questions
- When is the COT report released?
- Every Friday at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time, with positions as of Tuesday. Federal holidays delay it to the next business day.
- Who are the speculators in the COT report?
- In the disaggregated report, managed money: hedge funds, commodity trading advisers and similar funds.
- Is the COT report free?
- Yes. The CFTC publishes it free of charge on its website, along with historical files.