Free COT Reports
for +380 CFTC Markets

The Commitments of Traders (COT) report is a weekly publication by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) that provides a breakdown of open interest positions held by different categories of traders in U.S. futures markets. It shows how Non-Commercial (institutional), Commercial (hedgers), and Non-Reportable (retail) traders are positioned across hundreds of futures contracts.

The CFTC releases the COT report every Friday at 3:30 PM Eastern Time. The data reflects positions as of the preceding Tuesday. When a US federal holiday falls on the Wednesday, Thursday or Friday of that week, the release moves to the next business day, usually the following Monday — a Monday holiday such as Labor Day does not delay it. COT-Reports.com publishes updated reports within minutes of the CFTC release.

Non-Commercial traders (also called Large Speculators or "Smart Money") are institutional traders such as hedge funds and money managers who trade futures for speculative profit. Commercial traders (Hedgers) are companies that use futures to hedge their business operations. Understanding the difference helps traders gauge institutional sentiment versus commercial hedging activity.

COT data reveals how institutional and commercial traders are positioned in the futures markets. By tracking changes in their positions week over week, you can identify potential trend reversals, confirm existing trends, and understand market sentiment. Many traders use COT data as a contrarian indicator — when positioning reaches extreme levels, it often signals a market turning point.

COT-Reports.com offers multiple formats: Weekly Summary (all markets at a glance), Simplified (color-coded weekly history per market), Detailed (full breakdown by trader category), and Charts (visual positioning over time). All of them are free — 6 months of history without an account, up to 10 years with a free account. Premium adds the Disaggregated Futures & Options, Traders in Financial Futures and Supplemental reports with 20+ years of history.

Yes. COT-Reports.com offers free access to Simplified, Detailed and Weekly Summary reports for every CFTC market. Anonymous visitors get YTD, 3-month and 6-month time periods; create a free account to unlock the full 1Y → 10Y history range and grouped views (bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly). Premium subscribers add Disaggregated, TFF and Supplemental reports, the Heatmap, Advanced Charts, Volume Profile and CSV export.

The COT Reports Simplified Version is a proprietary format created by COT-Reports.com that presents the weekly history of a single market — 6 months without an account, up to 10 years with a free account. It includes Long, Short, Change Long, Change Short, Net Positions, Net Change, Net % Change, % OI Long, % OI Short, and Open Interest columns — all enhanced with color-coded gradients.

The COT Reports Detailed Version provides a comprehensive breakdown of the weekly history (6 months without an account, up to 10 years with a free account) organized into three sections: Non-Commercial (Large Speculators), Commercial (Hedgers), and Non-Reportable (Small Speculators). Each section shows Longs, Shorts, Change Longs, Change Shorts, Net Positions, %OI Longs, and %OI Shorts.

The COT reports on COT-Reports.com were originally created as Excel spreadsheets. Over the years they were continuously improved until we reached the limitations of what Excel could offer. At that point we transitioned all reports to a web-based platform. For traders who still prefer working in Excel, all report data can be exported as CSV files with 20+ years of historical data.

You can access COT reports for free on COT-Reports.com. Visit the site, pick the market you want to analyze, and read the data. We offer Simplified, Detailed, Weekly Summary and Charts formats — all updated every Friday. Create a free account to unlock the full 1Y → 10Y historical range and grouped views.

Yes, COT reports are widely used by gold traders to understand institutional positioning. By monitoring Non-Commercial net positions in gold futures, traders can identify when large speculators are building extreme long or short positions — which often precedes major price reversals.

COT stands for Commitments of Traders. It refers to a weekly report published by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) that breaks down the open interest in futures markets by trader category. COT data is considered one of the most important tools for understanding market sentiment.

Trading with COT data involves monitoring weekly changes in positioning by different trader categories. The most common approach is to track Non-Commercial net positions — when institutional traders reach extreme levels, it often signals a potential trend reversal. COT-Reports.com offers an in-depth on-site guide that explains these strategies in detail.

The CFTC releases the Commitments of Traders data every Friday at 3:30 PM Eastern Time (New York). The data reflects trader positions as of the preceding Tuesday close. When a US federal holiday falls on the Wednesday, Thursday or Friday of that week, the release moves to the next business day, usually the following Monday — a Monday holiday such as Labor Day does not delay it.

In the Legacy COT report, Non-Commercial covers all large speculative positions. The Disaggregated report breaks this into Managed Money (hedge funds and CTAs — the "smart money") and Other Reportables. The TFF report separates it further into Asset Manager/Institutional (pension funds, endowments), Leveraged Funds (directional hedge funds), and Other Reportables. The free Legacy view lumps all of these into one number. → Go Premium to see every trader category with 20+ years of historical data.

Commercial traders in the Legacy report are hedgers with direct exposure to the underlying asset. The Disaggregated report splits them into Producer/Merchant/Processor/User (physical commodity hedgers) and Swap Dealers (banks bridging OTC and exchange markets). The TFF report uses Dealer/Intermediary (typically large banks). They hedge real exposure, so their net position usually runs against the trend — many traders read its extremes as a contrarian signal. → Go Premium to see the full Commercial breakdown across all CFTC report formats.

COT reports show you which trader category — Non-Commercial speculators (hedge funds), Commercial hedgers, or small Non-Reportable traders — is positioned long or short in a given futures market. Most traders use this as a contrarian signal: when speculators reach extreme net long or net short positioning, a reversal often follows. Reading COT reports weekly is one of the few free tools that shows you what institutional money is actually doing, not just what they say.

Free COT reports on COT-Reports.com cover all 380 CFTC markets in 4 formats: Simplified, Detailed, Weekly Summary, and Charts. Premium adds Disaggregated, Traders in Financial Futures (TFF), Supplemental, COT Heatmap, Advanced Charts, Volume Profile, and 20+ years of historical data. Premium also unlocks CSV export, Price column, and Group Reports for week-over-week comparisons. Both share the same underlying CFTC data — premium is about deeper views, longer history, and analyst-grade tooling.

Yes. Premium subscribers get one-click CSV export from any report page. There's also a dedicated COT Report Spreadsheet ($39 one-time) that ships a Microsoft Excel template (.xlsm) with Power Query — open the file Friday afternoon and the latest CFTC data is pulled automatically. For developers, the COT Data API ($9.99/mo) returns weekly history in JSON. Three different ways to get COT report data into Excel, depending on whether you want clicks, an automated workbook, or programmatic access.

No. The CFTC Commitments of Traders report covers futures contracts only — index futures (S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, Russell 2000), commodity futures (crude oil, gold, corn), currency futures (EUR/USD, JPY), bond futures (10-year Treasury), and crypto futures (Bitcoin, Ether). Individual stocks like Tesla or Apple don't have CFTC-regulated futures contracts, so there's no COT report for them. If you need positioning data on single stocks, look at SEC 13F filings (institutional holdings) or short-interest reports — different datasets, different regulators, but they answer the closest equivalent question.