What this tool shows
Weekly positioning of futures traders from the CFTC Commitments of Traders (COT) reports, and where today's positioning sits compared with the last 2, 3 and 5 years. Data is Futures Only. Positions are as of Tuesday and published on Friday afternoon (New York time); the page updates automatically after each release.
Reports and trader categories
Legacy covers every market. Non-Commercial are large speculators (hedge funds and similar), Commercial are hedgers using futures against a physical or financial business, and Non-Reportable are small traders below the reporting threshold.
Disaggregated covers commodities (metals, energy, grains, softs, livestock): Managed Money (funds and CTAs), Producer/Merchant, Swap Dealers, Other Reportables, Non-Reportable.
TFF (Traders in Financial Futures) covers currencies, equity indices, rates and crypto: Leveraged Funds (hedge funds), Asset Manager (institutional), Dealer/Intermediary, Other Reportables, Non-Reportable.
Table columns
- Long / Short: contracts held long or short by the selected category.
- Total: Long + Short.
- % Long / % Short: each side as a share of Total. Blue means mostly long, red mostly short.
- Net: Long − Short. Positive is net long, negative is net short.
- Net % OI: Net divided by total open interest. Because market size grows over time, this makes today comparable with years ago.
- Δ Net (week) and % Chg: change in net position since the previous report, in contracts and as a percent of last week's absolute net.
- Pctl 2Y / 3Y / 5Y: percentile rank of the current value inside the last 2, 3 or 5 years. 100 is the most net long of the window, 0 the most net short, 50 the middle. Colors run from red (low) through white to blue (high).
The Percentile of selector switches the percentiles between raw net position and net as % of open interest. Only extremes keeps markets where any percentile is at or above 90 or at or below 10.
Charts
Click a row, or open the Charts tab. For a single category and Net, Long or Short, the chart shows the line over the chosen window with: the blue zone above the 90th percentile and the red zone below the 10th percentile (the extreme zones), dotted max and min lines, a grey median line, and a marker for the latest value with its percentile. Choose "All three" to see the 2, 3 and 5 year windows stacked; the default is 5 years.
Long and short together, or all categories together, are drawn as plain lines without zones.
Exporting
Table: the Export CSV button downloads exactly what is shown (selected report, category and filters) with raw numbers; it opens directly in Excel. Charts: each chart has an Export menu with PNG, JPEG, WebP and SVG images (with title and source line added) and a CSV of the plotted data for that window.
How to read it
A high percentile means the category is unusually long compared with the window; a low one means unusually short. Extreme readings show crowded positioning, which is context for risk and sentiment rather than a timing signal on its own. When comparing across long periods, prefer the % of open interest view.
Percentile definition: the share of weeks in the window, including the current week, whose value is at or below the current value.