How to Find the Commitment of Traders (COT) Report
So you want to know how to fnd the commitment of traders (COT) report. Getting your hands on the COT
report is a great way for you to make sure you have some idea of what traders are thinking about when it comes
to the market as it is right now. We want to walk you through step-by-step how to fnd your COT report.
Step 1: Go to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Website
Open up the web address that you will need to navigate to in order to see the report. In this case, you can access the report here. (Bookmark this page.) There you will find all of the information you need.
Step 2: Find the COT Report
When the first page opens up, you will want to scroll down to the part that says Current Legacy Report. You can also do a word search on the page to fnd this specific report on the page. Click on Short Format under the Futures Only section for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange report.
Step 3: Find the Currency for which You Want to See the Data
Once you have done this, you will fnd a large amount of data right in your face at the same time. You may be a
little blown away by all of this, and there are some people who get scared that they have stepped into something crazier than they intended to. Just take a deep breath and understand that this is what the report looks like, and it is easy to digest once you get used to it.
To find a particular currency, hit CTRL+F on your keyboard and search for that currency — “Canadian Dollar” for example below.
Terms to Know
A few of the terms that you will see include the following:
• Commercial – Big corporate entities that use currency futures to hedge and protect themselves from excessive exchange rate fluctuation
• Non-Commercial -A mix of individual traders, hedge funds, and financial institutions — mostly trading for speculative gains
• Long – The number of long contracts in this currency pair reported to the CFTC
• Short – The number of short contracts in this currency pair reported to the CFTC
• Open interest – The number of contracts that have not been exercised or delivered
• Number of traders – This is the total number of traders who are required to report their positions in this currency pair to the CFTC
• Reportable positions – The number of positions that are required to be reported to the CFTC
• Non-reportable positions – The number of positions that are not large enough to require a report with the CFTC
These are all things that you may see when you frst open the report. Make sure you take some time to learn
how each one can help you make trading decisions.
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