Commitments of traders report
What are COT reports?
Commitments of traders report (Commitments of traders report) - weekly report published CFTC Commodity Futures Trading Commissionwhich contains the number of open short and long positions opened by traders on the market futures.
COT Traders Report is categorized by groups of market participants: small speculatorsbig traders, hedgers or operators who do take delivery on contracts. Purpose of the COT report - take into account all open positions in the futures market and provide this information to all interested participants. This is an excellent tool to show the mood of the big players.
The report on the number of open positions is usually published on Friday. The publication of the report is monitored by Commodity Futures Trading Commission (Commodity Futures Trading Commission)which sometimes changes the bar on the number of contracts required to be classified into one or another group of traders.
Where are the COT Reports published?
COT reports are published once a week on the official website of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in text format cftc.gov. The need for these reports is that all market participants, divided into several groups, report on their open positions. U.S. law requires this report to be executed to ensure transparency of the derivatives market.
Visually, the report data can be observed on the website timingcharts.com.
Why are the SOT reports coming out a week late?
The largest participants in the oil, dollar, S&P and bond markets report their positions every day. The CFTC summarizes net speculative positions on Tuesday, but the COMMITMENTS OF TRADERS REPORT is usually released on Friday, but due to holidays, the report publication dates may vary. The website has report schedule. So we get data with a week's lateness, but actually for last week, not the current week.
It is worth noting that the report not only looks at futures, but also options.
What do COT reports consist of?
Each group of market participants has its own peculiarities of behavior. All information from the COT Report is used to display the behavior of market participants. the main components of the COT Report displaying the actions of all market participants are the following parameters:
- NON REPORTABLE POSITIONS
These are small traders with insignificant positions. You can ignore them, as they are the "crowd" with small deposits.
- NON-COMMERCIAL
These are the big speculators. That is, banks or investment funds. And also individuals with large capitals. Here you can see the subdivision into the number of long positions and short positions.
- COMMERCIAL
This is data on hedgers. Data on commercial representatives on the market, who trade not to make money speculatively, but in their own interests. That is some big companies.
- TOTAL
The sum of long and short positions of large players and commercial hedgers. For each position there is a division into Long and Short. This is the division by the number of long positions and short positions.
- CHANGES FROM
These are the changes since the last published report. How many Long and Short positions have been added and lost by different categories of traders. Additionally, there is data on open interest.
How to use COT trader reports in trading on ?
There are many strategies built around the use of COMMITMENTS OF TRADERS REPORT. The simplest example of using COT reports is as follows.
A specific decision to buy or sell a currency pair is made depending on which way the balance on the corresponding futures shifts:
- if according to the COT report, large speculators are building up a long position - we work for currency appreciation;
- if large speculators fix longs and increase shorts - we work on currency rate decrease.