On COT Report – Part VIII. – Classic COT Report

The Legacy Commitments of Traders data is the one most people refer to by ’COT data’. This is the classic data, on which books are written (see Resources), with history from 1983. These Commitments of Traders reports categorize futures traders into the following three groups:

Commercials: primary producers and processors of commodities

Large Speculators: speculators holding many futures (and options) contracts, above a certain limit (officially referred to ’Non-commercials’)

Small Speculators: speculators holding not too many futures (and options) contracts, below a certain limit (officially named ’Non-reportables’)

Our subscribers can analyze the changes and chart all Legacy Commitment of Traders positions on the markets listed in Markets Covered.

Recent changes in net positions can be compared to 52-week, all-time or any other time ranges. This is a very useful way of comparing the recent repositioning of traders to the past. Violent changes in traders’ positions often signal great long or short signals.

COT Indexes can also be constructed using our COT Analysis service. By establishing a lookback period, it is possible to “normalize” COT data on a 0-100 scale. A 100 reading shows that during the lookback period, the current reading is the maximum; a 0 reading shows that it is at a minimum. You can set the lookback period between 1-5 years (The preset 3-year lookback means that eg. a 0 reading corresponds to the 3-year low in the respective Commitments of Traders data – in case of Commercials this could be a sell signal).

COT Extremes is another useful tool for our subscribers to see how many reports ago did trader net positions stay at the current level. The “All-time” result means, that there has never been a precedent to the current readings, that is a very strong COT signal.