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Free guide · Beginners

How to read the COT report — the free essentials.

Free · No login · 5‑min read · Source: CFTC
By · Reviewed · Source: CFTC

Start with the essentials below — what the data shows, who the traders are and how to read every column. When you’re ready to go deeper, the complete walkthrough is our on-site guide.

Start with the essentialsRead the complete guide
Simplified COT report — EURO FX, Non-CommercialReal report · FreeEURO FX · Simplified
The short answer

How do you read a COT report?

How to read a COT report: identify the trader category, look at the Net Position (Long minus Short), compare the week-over-week change, check where the current net position sits in its multi-year percentile range, and cross-reference with price action — the same five-step framework professional positioning analysts use.

Each step links to its explanation below
  1. Identify the trader categoryUsually Non-Commercials — the large speculators.
  2. Look at the Net PositionLong minus Short: positive is net bullish, negative net bearish.
  3. Compare the week-over-week changeIs the bias strengthening or unwinding?
  4. Check the multi-year percentile rangeNear the top or bottom of its range? That is a COT extreme.
  5. Cross-reference with price actionPositioning is the lens — price confirms the move.
THE ESSENTIALS

4 things to know before you read your first COT report

Read these once and every column of the report will make sense. Five minutes, no login.

Every term in the glossary
The report

What the report actually shows

The Commitments of Traders (COT) report is published every Friday by the CFTC, the U.S. futures regulator. It shows who holds positions in each futures market — as of the close on Tuesday — split by type of trader. Reading it tells you how the biggest players are positioned before price reacts.

Key takeawayTuesday’s positions, published Friday at 3:30 PM ET.

New to COT?What is the COT Report? →
The weekly cycle
  1. TuesdayPositions snapshot
  2. Friday3:30 PM ET · CFTC
  3. YouRead it on COT-Reports.com
The traders

Commercials vs non-commercials

Two groups matter most. Commercials are hedgers — producers and users of the asset — who trade to manage business risk and often lean against the trend. Non-commercials are large speculators like hedge funds, trading to profit from price moves. Their net position is the one most traders watch for directional clues.

Key takeawayStart with the Non-Commercial net position.

The two groups
HedgersCommercialProducers & usersWatched mostNon-CommercialLarge speculators
The columns

The columns, decoded

Longs are buy positions, shorts are sells. Net positions = longs minus shorts — positive is net bullish, negative net bearish. The change columns show what was added or closed since last week. % of open interest shows how crowded one side is; open interest is the total live contracts, a read on participation and liquidity.

Key takeawayNet = Long − Short. Positive is bullish, negative bearish.

Net position, worked out
198k LONG−92k SHORT=▲ 106k NET

With Premium, the tables also include a Close Price column — the closing price on Tuesday evening, the same moment the COT positions are captured. Positioning and price, side by side.

PREMIUMWhat the colours and column combinations signalIn the complete guide
Watch out

The #1 beginner mistake

Currency futures are priced in U.S. dollars per unit of the foreign currency. For EUR/USD, GBP/USD, AUD/USD and NZD/USD that matches the pair you trade — but when you read the Japanese Yen report you’re looking at JPY/USD, not USD/JPY, so the picture flips (the same goes for CHF, CAD and MXN). Planning to short USD/JPY? You’d want to see rising long positions in the Yen report. The U.S. Dollar Index (DX) is the exception: it tracks the dollar itself against a basket of six currencies, so it reads straight.

Key takeawayJPY, CHF, CAD and MXN read inverted. DX reads straight.

Try it · The 180° flipAs published
Viewing asJPY/USD
Non-Commercial net▲ +55,440
Only on COT-Reports.comOn COT-Reports.com, the currency tables have this switch — one click flips the view 180°, so the Yen futures report reads like USD/JPY.Not needed for the Dollar Index (DX).Colors: 180° (Inverted)Try the switch on the Japanese Yen report
Steps 4 & 5

Then add context: extremes and price.

Percentile range

Is positioning stretched?

Compare this week’s net position with its own history. Rank it against the last 3–5 years: near the bottom or top of that range, positioning is stretched — a COT extreme. Extremes don’t time a turn on their own, but they tell you which side of the market is crowded.

What’s a COT extreme?
Price action

Does price agree?

Positioning matters most when price confirms it. If large speculators keep adding longs while price makes higher highs, the trend has support; if they are cutting longs into new highs, the move is losing fuel. Read the COT as the lens, the chart as the trigger.

PREMIUMWorked example: the Yen report vs USD/JPY →
Premium guide3 parts · Worked example (Yen vs USD/JPY)

Go from the basics to reading any market like a pro

The free essentials above get you started. Our complete on-site guide takes you all the way — including the exact colour system in our simplified reports and how to line a COT report up against the price chart, step by step, in a worked example (the Japanese Yen report vs USD/JPY).

  1. Part 1The basics — where the data comes from and every column explained.
  2. Part 2The colour system — spot shifts in market sentiment at a glance.
  3. Part 3COT vs. chart — connect positioning to price in a worked example (Yen vs USD/JPY).
Get the guide
$23$29One-time
Get this guide with a 3-month or annual Premium plan. Prefer everything in one place? The 3-month and annual COT Premium plans include this complete guide at no extra cost — alongside the Disaggregated, TFF and Supplemental reports, the analytics tools and 20+ years of history.See Premium
Latest report · 13 Oct 2026 · EURO FXNet short137,573-38,241 w/wHover a row or a column header — the guide explains every one of them.
EURO FX - CMENON-COMMERCIAL
DATELONGSHORTCHANGE LONGCHANGE SHORTNET POSITIONSNET CHANGENET % CHANGE% OI LONG% OI SHORT
1 Sep 2026203,477228,402+4,558-6,869-24,925+11,427+31.43%23.51%26.39%
8 Sep 2026198,509241,125-4,968+12,723-42,616-17,691-70.98%21.06%25.58%
15 Sep 2026209,000235,993+10,491-5,132-26,993+15,623+36.66%22.72%25.65%
22 Sep 2026220,708273,042+11,708+37,049-52,334-25,341-93.88%26.86%33.23%
29 Sep 2026238,183301,439+17,475+28,397-63,256-10,922-20.87%27.89%35.30%
6 Oct 2026243,020342,352+4,837+40,913-99,332-36,076-57.03%27.92%39.34%
13 Oct 2026222,929360,502-20,091+18,150-137,573-38,241-38.50%25.49%41.22%
Valentin Dima, COT-Reports.com
Who writes the guides

Written and maintained by Valentin Dima, COT-Reports.com.

Publishing CFTC positioning data since 2020. Sources are cited explicitly to the CFTC, and every page is reviewed each quarter.

About
Put it into practice

Start with the free reports.

Every COT report format we track is live and free to read. Start with Simplified for the market you trade, go deeper with Detailed, then use the Weekly Summary and Charts for the big picture.

Open the latest COT report
Simplified COT Report previewFree · Updated every FridaySimplified COT ReportUp to 10 years of weekly data per market with a free account (last 6 months without one) — Non-Commercial, Commercial, and Non-Reportable positions.Open the report
FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Still unsure about a column or a category? Write to contact@cot-reports.com.

Helpful links
How to Read the Simplified COT ReportThe complete on-site guideWhat is the COT Report?The foundational explanationGlossaryEvery COT term in plain EnglishCFTC Release ScheduleEvery Friday, 3:30 PM ET — and holiday delays

Where do I start with reading the COT report?

Start with the Legacy Futures Only format and one market you actually trade. Look at the Non-Commercial Net Position column — Long minus Short for large speculators. Track it weekly for 4-8 weeks and you will start to see how positioning shifts ahead of price moves.

What does Non-Commercial mean in the COT report?

Non-Commercials are large speculators — hedge funds, CTAs and other money managers whose positions exceed the CFTC reporting threshold — trading to profit from price moves rather than to hedge a business. Their net position (Long minus Short) is the most-watched line in the Legacy report.

What's a COT extreme?

A COT extreme occurs when a trader category's net position reaches the upper or lower end of its multi-year range — for example, Non-Commercial net longs at the 95th percentile of the past 5 years. Extremes are often contrarian setups: when everyone is on one side, the next move tends to go the other way.

Should I trade based on the COT alone?

No. The COT is a positioning lens, not a complete trading system. Use it alongside price action, technical setups and macro context — for example, treating an extreme Non-Commercial net long as a warning to tighten risk on existing longs rather than as a standalone short signal.

How long does it take to learn to read the COT report?

About one trading week of focused reading per CFTC report family you care about. For Legacy (Non-Commercial / Commercial / Non-Reportable) the foundational concepts take an hour; building intuition for what extremes look like across markets takes ~4-8 weeks of watching the Friday release alongside price action. Disaggregated, TFF, and Supplemental add detail you absorb incrementally once Legacy is solid.

Which trader categories matter most?

Depends on the market. Commodity futures (grains, metals, energies, softs): Producer/Merchant + Managed Money in the Disaggregated report — Producer/Merchant flags hedging pressure, Managed Money flags speculative crowding. Financial futures (rates, indices, FX): Asset Manager + Leveraged Funds in the TFF report. Legacy Non-Commercial / Commercial works as a fallback when you want a simpler 3-bucket view and consistency back to 1986.

How often is the COT report released?

Once a week. The CFTC publishes Friday at 15:30 ET for the Tuesday market-close snapshot — so the report you read Friday afternoon reflects positions held three trading days earlier. 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’s auto-watcher detects the new publish in either case.

Where can I read the COT report for free?

On COT-Reports.com. The Weekly Summary, Simplified and Detailed reports and the COT Data Charts are free for every market and update every Friday after the CFTC release at 3:30 PM ET. Without an account you see the last 6 months; a free account unlocks up to 10 years of Simplified and Detailed history. COT-Reports Premium adds the full 20+ year history, custom date ranges, the Close Price column and CSV export.

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