COT Data

Every Friday, the CFTC publishes how large speculators ("non-commercial" traders — hedge funds and other large accounts, not commercial hedgers) are positioned in currency futures. We track long contracts, short contracts, net position (long minus short), open interest, and the week-over-week change in each, for every major currency plus gold, silver, oil, and the major US indices.

Net position is the headline number — positive means speculators are net long that currency (more bullish bets than bearish), negative means net short. The change columns matter as much as the level: a currency can be heavily net long but losing longs every week, which is a very different signal from one that's net long and still building. Open interest tells you how much total money is in the game, not which direction it's leaning.

Positioning extremes are the real signal. When net long or net short reaches a multi-year high relative to its own history, the trade is crowded — a lot of the move may already be priced in, and the risk of a sharp reversal as positions unwind grows. COT is slow-moving (weekly, with a few days' reporting lag) and works best as a background read on crowding, not a timing tool for entries.