How to Read the Simplified COT Report — The Complete Guide
A step-by-step guide to reading and interpreting the CFTC Commitments of Traders (COT) reports, right here on the site with live examples. Beginners welcome.

Buy the COT data archive and Data API, Excel spreadsheets, the How to Read the Simplified COT Report guide, a free cheat sheet and the TradeLog journal — with TradeLog Guardian robots for MetaTrader, cTrader and NinjaTrader coming soon. COT-Reports’ own products sit alongside approved third-party sellers, with one checkout on this site.
A step-by-step guide to reading and interpreting the CFTC Commitments of Traders (COT) reports, right here on the site with live examples. Beginners welcome.
The sibling app to COT-Reports: auto-syncs trades from MT4/MT5, cTrader, NinjaTrader, Tradovate and Rithmic. Analytics, prop-firm tracking, multi-account.
An on-chart position-size calculator and automatic risk guard for cTrader. Size every trade from your stop-loss and cap your risk automatically.
An on-chart position-size calculator and automatic risk guard for MetaTrader 4. Size every trade from your stop-loss and cap your risk automatically.
An on-chart position-size calculator and automatic risk guard for MetaTrader 5. Size every trade from your stop-loss and cap your risk automatically.
REST API for the entire CFTC Commitments of Traders dataset. Bearer auth, JSON responses, a monthly subscription.
All four CFTC Commitments of Traders report families, every market, every week (Legacy back to 1986) — in two archives, one per CFTC variant, each in CSV and NDJSON.
A pre-configured Microsoft Excel template that pulls live CFTC data on open: the latest week of every market plus ~10 years of the market you pick.
A one-page reference guide explaining all COT trader categories, report types, and key terms. Perfect for beginners.
An on-chart position-size calculator and automatic risk guard for NinjaTrader 8. Size every trade from your stop and keep every open position inside your risk.
A complete Microsoft Excel trading journal with statistics, equity curve and drawdown analysis. Includes 2 PDF guides.
Any Broker. Any Prop Firm. Any Market.
Auto-sync trades from MetaTrader, NinjaTrader, cTrader, Tradovate and more. Built-in analytics, prop-firm tracking, risk management and multi-account support. Basic and Premium include free EAs, a free cBot and a free NT Add-On.

The COT-Reports Marketplace sells tools built around Commitments of Traders data: the full COT data archive and the COT Data API, Excel spreadsheets that load the latest report, the How to Read the Simplified COT Report guide, a free cheat sheet and the TradeLog trading journal. TradeLog Guardian risk robots for MetaTrader, cTrader and NinjaTrader are coming soon.
Put your work in front of the traders who visit COT-Reports — about 100,000 visits a year. We host, discover and promote — you focus on building.
Publish, Sell, Get paid
Tell us what you built — indicator, EA, cBot, strategy, PDF, course or service.
We test every listing before it goes live.
Your tool is listed, promoted to COT-Reports traders, and you keep 80% of the sale price — COT-Reports pays the Stripe processing fee.
Can’t find your answer? Write to contact@cot-reports.com and include your order ID if it’s about a purchase.
Today: the COT Data Dump (the full history in both CFTC variants, one-time download) and the COT Data API (monthly subscription), two Excel spreadsheets (COT Data Spreadsheet and Trading Journal Spreadsheet), the How to Read the Simplified COT Report guide, a free COT cheat sheet and TradeLog, our trading journal app. TradeLog Guardian robots for MetaTrader 4/5, cTrader and NinjaTrader are coming soon. Developers can apply to sell their own tools.
The spreadsheets are Microsoft Excel files (the COT Data Spreadsheet needs Excel 2016 or newer on Windows). The data archives are CSV and NDJSON for any tool, the Data API answers JSON over HTTPS from any language, and the guide and TradeLog run in your browser. The Guardian robots (coming soon) are for MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, cTrader and NinjaTrader. Each product page lists its requirements.
Yes. COT-Reports’ own products are built and maintained by our team. A third-party seller applies through the Sell form, and their product is listed only after we approve it. Every listing names its seller.
No — Marketplace purchases are separate from the COT-Reports Premium subscription, with one exception: the 3-month and annual Premium plans include the How to Read the Simplified COT Report guide. The COT Data API is its own subscription.
Checkout runs on this site through Stripe: card, Apple Pay or Google Pay, plus PayPal for COT-Reports’ own products. You need a free account, so the purchase is saved to it. Delivery is immediate — downloads and the guide open from your account, and you get an email receipt. Third-party sellers are paid 14 days after the sale.
Digital items are delivered immediately: at checkout EU/EEA/UK buyers confirm that they want immediate access and that this ends their 14-day right of withdrawal, so there is no change-of-mind refund after purchase. Defects, broken installers or items that do not work as described are refunded regardless of jurisdiction, as are duplicate charges. Subscriptions (Premium, Data API) are services and follow the refund policy at /refund-policy. Contact contact@cot-reports.com with the order ID for any issue and we route it to either the third-party seller or our team depending on the SKU.
COT-Reports runs this marketplace as both a first-party seller (our own data products, spreadsheets, guides and robots) and as a platform where approved third-party vendors can list their own trading tools. Every listing shows the seller clearly.
Checkout runs on this site through Stripe — card, Apple Pay or Google Pay, plus PayPal for COT-Reports’ own products. You sign in first, so every purchase is saved to your account. Our own products are delivered immediately; third-party sellers are paid 14 days after a sale (the EU withdrawal period).
Trading-related products are educational tools — see our Risk Disclosure for the standard trading risk warnings.
For first-party products (by COT-Reports), contact us at contact@cot-reports.com.