How to read the COT report — the free essentials.
Start with the essentials below — what the data means and how to read every column. When you're ready to go deeper, the complete walkthrough is our on-site guide.
COT-ReportsGuideHow 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.
THE ESSENTIALS
How to read the COT report, in plain English
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.
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.
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.
The #1 beginner mistake
Every currency in the report is quoted against the U.S. dollar. When you read the Japanese Yen report you're looking at JPY/USD, not USD/JPY — so the picture flips. Planning to short USD/JPY? You'd want to see rising long positions in the Yen report. Miss this and you'll read the data backwards.
THE COMPLETE GUIDE
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 real worked example.
- Part 1 — The basics: where the data comes from and every column explained.
- Part 2 — The colour system: spot shifts in market sentiment at a glance.
- Part 3 — COT vs. chart: connect positioning to price in a real example.
Included free with a COT Premium annual plan.
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See Premium AnnualFrequently Asked Questions
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'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.
IN THE MEANTIME
Start with the free reports.
While the guide is being written, every COT report format we track is already live and free to read. Start with the Weekly Summary for the big picture, then dig into Simplified or Detailed for the markets you trade. The blog also has several short editorial pieces introducing the main ideas.
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