Live Cattle COT report positioning analysis.
Money managers (Managed Money) and small traders (Non-Reportable) are at opposite ends of their 3-year ranges in Live Cattle: the first near the bottom (above only 20% of the weeks), the second near the top (above 85%).
Fixed rules on
the weekly CFTC report.
The analysis sentences are produced by fixed rules from the week's numbers — not written by hand, not by a language model. The same rules run on every market after each CFTC release. The short market introductions are written texts.
Based on the CFTC's Futures Only report — Disaggregated for commodities, Traders in Financial Futures (TFF) for financial markets. A Futures & Options Combined view is coming for COT Premium.
Where today's net position sits in the group's own 3-year range: 0 = the lowest of the last 156 weeks, 100 = the highest. Shaded ends: the 80/20 and 90/10 bands.
- 01Rank each groupEvery group's net position, as % of open interest, is ranked against its own last 156 weeks (0–100).
- 02Name the bandHigh from 80, extremely high from 90; low at 20 and below, extremely low at 10 and below. A band is kept until the rank falls back below 75 / 85 (or rises above 25 / 15).
- 03Check opposite sidesWhen the speculators and the small traders sit at opposite ends of their ranges, that state takes priority.
- 04Measure the weekThis week's change is compared with the market's usual weekly change (a z-score over 52 weeks).
What does the Live Cattle COT positioning analysis show?
Live cattle futures (LE) on CME are 40,000 pounds of finished cattle per contract, the price of animals ready for slaughter. The market follows the size of the US cattle herd, feed costs and beef demand. The CFTC reports the contract in the Disaggregated report: Producer/Merchant (feedlots and packers), Swap Dealers (banks and index products) and Managed Money (hedge funds and CTAs). In Live Cattle, the net position of money managers (Managed Money) has ranged from -3% to +40% of open interest since June 2006.
When is the Live Cattle Commitments of Traders report released?
Every Friday at 3:30 PM Eastern Time, for positions held on the previous 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. This analysis updates after each release.
Who are the money managers in Live Cattle?
Managed Money in the CFTC's words: commodity trading advisors, commodity pool operators and funds that trade futures for clients. This analysis calls them the speculators.
What are the price candles above the chart?
Bars built from the Tuesday closes on the dates of the COT reports: each bar runs from the previous Tuesday close to its own, filled when it closed higher and hollow when it closed lower (4-week bars on the 5-year and 10-year views). They share the time axis with the positions below.
How is the 3-year range calculated?
Each week, a group's net position as % of open interest is compared with its own last 156 weekly readings: 0 is the lowest of those weeks and 100 the highest. A group becomes high at 80 and extremely high at 90, low at 20 and extremely low at 10. It keeps that band until its rank falls back below 75 (high) or 85 (extremely high), or rises above 25 and 15 on the low side, so a market does not change band on a small weekly move.
Is this investment advice?
No. It is an automated, educational description of public CFTC data and does not tell anyone what to do.
Not a trading signal, an entry point or a recommendation.
Automated, descriptive analysis of public CFTC data (prices: Yahoo Finance) by COT-Reports.com, computed Oct 12, 2026, 6:17 PM UTC from the report of Oct 6, 2026. The numbers are facts; the words describing them are our interpretation. COT-Reports.com sells subscriptions and lists partner offers. Not investment advice. Past patterns do not predict future prices. How this analysis is computed
Weekly data from CFTC (Futures Only). Price from Yahoo Finance. Charts drawn with TradingView Lightweight Charts™. Copyright (c) 2026 TradingView, Inc.