COT Data
Background and Information

Background: The Commitments of Traders Report

The first Commitments of Traders (COT) report was published for 13 agricultural commodities as of June 30, 1962. At the time, this report was proclaimed as "another step forward in the policy of providing the public with current and basic data on futures market operations". Those original reports were compiled on an end-of-month basis and were published on the 11th or 12th calendar day of the following month.

Over the years, in a continuous effort to inform better the public about futures markets, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has improved the COT in several ways. The COT report is published more often—switching to mid-month and month-end in 1990, to every 2 weeks in 1992, and to weekly in 2000. The COT report is released more quickly — moving the publication to the 6th business day after the "as of" date (1990) and then to the 3rd business day after the "as of" date (1992).

The COT reports provide a breakdown of each Tuesday's open interest for markets in which 20 or more traders hold positions equal to or above the reporting levels established by the CFTC are released every Friday at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time.

Reports are available in both a short and long format. The short report shows open interest separately by reportable and non-reportable positions. For reportable positions, additional data are provided for commercial and non-commercial holdings, spreading, changes from the previous report, percents of open interest by category, and numbers of traders.


Explanatory Notes

Reportable Positions – Clearing members, futures commission merchants, and foreign brokers (collectively called "reporting firms") file daily reports with the Commission. Those reports show the futures and option positions of traders that hold positions above specific reporting levels set by CFTC regulations. (Current Commission reporting levels can also be found at the Commission’s website noted above.) If, at the daily market close, a reporting firm has a trader with a position at or above the Commission’s reporting level in any single futures month or option expiration, it reports that trader’s entire position in all futures and options expiration months in that commodity, regardless of size. The aggregate of all traders’ positions reported to the Commission usually represents 70 to 90 percent of the total open interest in any given market. From time to time, the Commission will raise or lower the reporting levels in specific markets to strike a balance between collecting sufficient information to oversee the markets and minimizing the reporting burden on the futures industry.

Commercial and Non-commercial Traders – When an individual reportable trader is identified to the Commission, the trader is classified either as "commercial" or "non-commercial". All of a trader's reported futures positions in a commodity are classified as commercial if the trader uses futures contracts in that particular commodity for hedging as defined in the Commission's regulations (1.3(z)). A trading entity generally gets classified as a "commercial" by filing a statement with the Commission (on CFTC Form 40) that it is commercially "…engaged in business activities hedged by the use of the futures or option markets". In order to ensure that traders are classified with accuracy and consistency, the Commission staff may exercise judgment in re-classifying a trader if it has additional information about the trader’s use of the markets.

A trader may be classified as a commercial in some commodities and as a non-commercial in other commodities. A single trading entity cannot be classified as both a commercial and non-commercial in the same commodity. Nonetheless, a multi-functional organization that has more than one trading entity may have each trading entity classified separately in a commodity. For example, a financial organization trading in financial futures may have a banking entity whose positions are classified as commercial and have a separate money-management entity whose positions are classified as non-commercial.

Non-reportable Positions – "Non-reportable Positions" are derived by subtracting total long and short "Reportable Positions" from the total outstanding contracts. Accordingly, for "Non-reportable Positions," the number of traders involved and the commercial/non-commercial classification of each trader are unknown.

Open Interest – Open interest is the total of all futures and/or option contracts entered into and not yet offset by a transaction, by delivery, by exercise, etc. The aggregate of all long open interest is equal to the aggregate of all short open interest. Open interest held or controlled by a trader is referred to as that trader's position. Open interest, as reported to the Commission and as used in the COT report, does not include open futures contracts against which notices of deliveries have been stopped by a trader or issued by the clearing organization of an exchange.