Adam received his master’s in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology. He is a CFA charterholder as well as holding FINRA Series 7, 55 & 63 licenses. He currently researches and teaches economic sociology and the social studies of finance at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Unique to Barchart.com, data tables contain an option that allows you to see more data for the symbol without leaving the page.
Investors should consider their investment objectives and risks carefully before investing in options. Refer to the Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options before considering any options transaction. Supporting documentation for any claims, if applicable, will be furnished upon request.
How Do You Read a COT Report?
COT reports are based on position data supplied by reporting firms (FCMs, clearing members, foreign brokers, and exchanges). While the position data is supplied by reporting firms, the actual trader category or classification is based on the predominant business purpose self-reported by traders on the CFTC. It breaks down the open-interest positions of all major contracts that have more than 20 traders. The legacy COT simply shows the market for a commodity broken into long, short, and spread positions for non-commercial traders, commercial traders, and non-reportable positions (small traders). The total open interest is given as well as changes in open interest.
This means that an oil company with a small hedge and a much larger speculative trade on crude will have both positions show up in the commercial category. Simply put, even the disaggregated data is too aggregated to be said to accurately represent the market. Investment Plans (“Plans”) shown in our marketplace are for informational purposes only and are meant as helpful starting points as you discover, research and create a Plan that meets your specific investing needs. Plans are self-directed purchases of individually-selected assets, which may include stocks, ETFs and cryptocurrency.
The remaining three categories (“asset manager/institutional;” “leveraged funds;” and “other reportables”) represent the buy-side participants. These are essentially clients of the sell-side participants who use the markets to invest, hedge, manage risk, speculate or change the term structure or duration of their assets. The COT reports provide a breakdown of each Tuesday’s open interest for futures and options on futures markets in which 20 or more traders hold positions equal to or above the reporting levels established by the CFTC. Alternative Assets.Brokerage services for alternative assets available on Public are offered by Dalmore Group, LLC (“Dalmore”), member of FINRA & SIPC.
See our Investment Plans Terms and Conditions and Sponsored Content and Conflicts of Interest Disclosure. The disaggregated COT report is another one that is commonly known by traders. It provides a deeper breakdown of the market participants, splitting commercial traders into producers, merchants, processors, users, and swap dealers. The noncommercial participants are split between managed money and other reportables. JSI and Jiko Bank are not affiliated with Public Holdings, Inc. (“Public”) or any of its subsidiaries. Options transactions are often complex, and investors can rapidly lose the entire amount of their investment or more in a short period of time.
Market Movers
Tax considerations with options transactions are unique and investors considering options should consult their tax advisor as to how taxes affect the outcome of each options strategy. Barchart also offers extensive historical data through Barchart Excel and via API through Barchart OnDemand (Web Services). Both services provide access to historical market data across stocks, options, indices, futures and currencies. Such information is time sensitive and subject to change based on market conditions and other factors. You assume full responsibility for any trading decisions you make based upon the market data provided, and Public is not liable for any loss caused directly or indirectly by your use of such information. Market data is provided solely for informational and/or educational purposes only.
- It breaks down the open-interest positions of all major contracts that have more than 20 traders.
- While viewing Flipcharts, you can apply a custom chart template, further customizing the way you can analyze the symbols.
- All fixed income securities are subject to price change and availability, and yield is subject to change.
Available for U.S. and Canadian equities, futures and forex symbols, the Latest Trades tab displays the last 50 trades for the symbol. Site visitors (not logged in) see 3-months of daily price information for any symbol that Barchart carries. When logged into the site using either a free or Premier membership, you can change the amount of data to display using the data selector. The legacy COT report separates reportable traders only into “commercial” and “non-commercial” categories. There have been recommendations to publish more detailed data on a delay as not to affect commercially sensitive positions, but that still looks unlikely.
COT reports can be obtained from the CFTC website and can be downloaded in several file formats. Also unique to Barchart, Flipcharts allow you to scroll through all the symbols on the table in a chart view. While viewing Flipcharts, you can apply a custom chart template, further customizing the way you can analyze the symbols.
About Cott Corporation
Looking at the COT example in the table above, we can see that Nasdaq 100 futures, traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) had an open interest of 57,779 contracts on June 15, 2021. Of these, 14,320 were longs held by dealers and 10,875 shorts sold by institutional traders. The COT provides an overview of what the key market participants think and helps determine the likelihood of a trend continuing or coming to an end. If commercial and non-commercial long positions are both growing, for example, that is a bullish signal for the price of the underlying commodity.
COT Related stocks
Ratings are not recommendations to purchase, hold, or sell securities, and they do not address the market value of securities or their suitability for investment purposes. Clearing members, futures commission merchants, and foreign https://www.wallstreetacademy.net/ 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.
The Barchart site’s data is then updated, after the official CFTC release. These are institutional investors, including pension funds, endowments, insurance companies, mutual funds and those portfolio/investment managers whose clients are predominantly institutional. 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. Highlights important summary options statistics to provide a forward looking indication of investors’ sentiment.
Reportable traders that are not placed into one of the first three categories are placed into the “other reportables” category. The traders in this category mostly are using markets to hedge business risk, whether that risk is related to foreign exchange, equities or interest rates. This category includes corporate treasuries, central banks, smaller banks, mortgage originators, credit unions and any other reportable traders not assigned to the other three categories. The supplemental report is the one that outlines 13 specific agricultural commodity contracts. This report shows a breakdown of open interest positions in three different categories. These categories include non-commercial, commercial, and index traders.
The long and short open interest shown as “Nonreportable Positions” is derived by subtracting total long and short “Reportable Positions” from the total open interest. Accordingly, for “Nonreportable Positions,” the number of traders involved and the commercial/non-commercial classification of each trader are unknown. The reports are read as tables, which each row and column labeled appropriately (see the example above). The information in the report indicates how much interest there is, both long and short, in various derivatives contracts, and which type of market actor is involved. Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and behavioral finance.