TIFF COT reports

The Traders in Financial Futures (aka TIFF) report is a new report, its publication started in 2010, together with the Disaggregated COT reports. The philosophy behind these reports is the same as in case of Disaggregated data: to break down big trader categories into smaller, and more homogenous sub-parts. In case of financial futures, we cannot really speak of "producers" and "processors", on the other hand we can divide the users of these markets. Here are the categories explained:

1 Dealer/Intermediary:

typical 'sell side' companies, which sell financial products to clients and hedge their risks with futures contracts. They are not on the market to speculate, their main intention is to sell their price risk.

2 Asset Manager/Institutional:

institutional investors like pension and mutual funds, endowments, insurance companies.

3 Leveraged Funds:

typically hedge funds, including Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs), Commodity Pool Operator (CPOs) and propriatery traders, also trading on behalf of clients.

4 Other reportables:

large traders which do not fit it the above three categories. Typically corporate treasuries, central banks, smaller banks, credit unions, mortgage originators.

Check out the full explanation of Traders in Financial Futures data by CFTC.