Commitments of Traders

Commitments of Traders (COT) Reports Descriptions

Introduction and Classification Methodology

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (Commission or CFTC) publishes the Commitments of Traders (COT) reports to help the public understand market dynamics. Specifically, the COT reports provide a breakdown of each Tuesday’s open interest for futures and options on futures markets in which 20 or more traders hold positions equal to or above the reporting levels established by the CFTC.

The COT reports are based on position data supplied by reporting firms (FCMs, clearing members, foreign brokers and exchanges). While the position data is supplied by reporting firms, the actual trader category or classification is based on the predominant business purpose self-reported by traders on the CFTC Form 40¹ and is subject to review by CFTC staff for reasonableness.² CFTC staff does not know specific reasons for traders’ positions and hence this information does not factor in determining trader classifications. In practice this means, for example, that the position data for a trader classified in the “producer/merchant/processor/user” category for a particular commodity will include all of its positions in that commodity, regardless of whether the position is for hedging or speculation. Note that traders are able to report business purpose by commodity and, therefore, can have different classifications in the COT reports for different commodities. For one of the reports, Traders in Financial Futures, traders are classified in the same category for all commodities.

Due to legal restraints (CEA Section 8 data and confidential business practices), the CFTC does not publish information on how individual traders are classified in the COT reports.

Generally, the data in the COT reports is from Tuesday and released Friday. The CFTC receives the data from the reporting firms on Wednesday morning and then corrects and verifies the data for release by Friday afternoon.

Types of Reports

There are four main reports:

1. Legacy

2. Supplemental

3. Disaggregated

4. Traders in Financial Futures

The Legacy reports are broken down by exchange. These reports have a futures only report and a combined futures and options report. Legacy reports break down the reportable open interest positions into two classifications: non-commercial and commercial traders.

The Supplemental report includes 13 select agricultural commodity contracts for combined futures and options positions. Supplemental reports break down the reportable open interest positions into three trader classifications: non-commercial, commercial, and index traders.

The Disaggregated reports are broken down by agriculture, petroleum and products, natural gas and products, electricity and metals and other physical contracts. These reports have a futures only report and a combined futures and options report. The Disaggregated reports break down the reportable open interest positions into four classifications:

1. Producer/Merchant/Processor/User

2. Swap Dealers

3. Managed Money

4. Other Reportables

Please see the “Disaggregated Explanatory Notes” for further information.

The Traders in Financial Futures (TFF) report includes financial contracts, such as currencies, US Treasury securities, Eurodollars, stocks, VIX and Bloomberg commodity index.³ These reports have a futures only report and a combined futures and options report. The TFF report breaks down the reportable open interest positions into four classifications:

1. Dealer/Intermediary

2. Asset Manager/Institutional

3. Leveraged Funds

4. Other Reportables

Please see the “Traders in Financial Futures Explanatory Notes” for further information.

Short and Long Format of Reports

The Legacy and Disaggregated reports are available in both a short and long format. The TFF report is only available in the long format. The Supplemental report is only available in the short format.

The short format shows reportable open interest and week-to-week open interest changes separately by reportable and non-reportable positions. For reportable positions, additional data is provided for commercial and non-commercial holdings, spreading (in certain categories only), changes from the previous report, percent of open interest by category, and numbers of traders.

The long report, in addition to the information in the short report, groups the data by crop year, where appropriate, and shows the concentration of positions held by the largest four and eight traders.

Release Schedule

Please see the official Release Schedule for a calendar of release dates.

History of Disaggregated COT data - October 20, 2009

CFTC will make available more than three years of history of disaggregated data included in the weekly Commitments of Traders (COT) reports.  History for the 22 commodity futures markets currently contained in the weekly disaggregated COT reports, first published on September 4, 2009, will be available starting Tuesday, October 20, 2009.

Machine-readable files will be located on the CFTC website, with data dating back to June 13, 2006.  One type is a zipped, comma-delimited text file Historical Compressed; while the other type is a zipped Excel file. Historical Compressed In addition, the 3-year history will be available in a “viewable” file on the CFTC website, by commodity group, and, within group, by commodity.  Historical Viewables These viewable files will only be available in the “long format.”

Please note: CFTC does not maintain a history of large trader classifications.  Therefore, current classifications are used to classify the historical positions of each reportable trader (this approach is commonly referred to as “backcasting;” see the D-COT Explanatory Notes at, Disaggregated Explanatory Notes.)

Reports Dated December 08, 2020 - Current Disaggregated Reports:

• Disaggregated Futures-Only Commitments of Traders Comma Delimited
• Disaggregated Futures and Options Commitments of Traders Comma Delimited
• Disaggregated Explanatory Notes

• Traders in Financial Futures; Futures-Only Commitments of Traders Comma Delimited
• Traders in Financial Futures; Futures and Options Commitments of Traders Comma Delimited
• Traders in Financial Futures; Explanatory Notes

• Futures-Only Commitments of Traders Comma Delimited
• Options and Futures Commitments of Traders Comma Delimited
• Supplement: Commodity Index Report Comma Delimited

Variable Names for Long COT Legacy Reports

Variable Names for Long Commodity Index Trader Supplemental Report

Variable Names for Disaggregated COT Reports

Variable Names for Traders in Financial Futures Reports

In a December 5, 2006 press release, the CFTC announced that, in addition to the existing weekly Commitments of Traders reports, a supplemental report would be published beginning January 5, 2007.

The Commission’s actions in response to its comprehensive review of the Commitments of Traders Reporting program are summarized in Comprehensive Review of the Commitments of Traders Reporting Program published December 5, 2006. An Executive Summary of the December 5, 2006 report is also available.

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