Calculation and mechanics
The CFTC classifies reportable traders per market. Commercials are market participants that use futures in connection with their business in the underlying, for example commodity producers, processors or companies with interest rate or currency risks.
All other reportable traders are listed as non-commercials in the Legacy report. In market jargon they are often called large speculators. They include funds and other large market participants.
The third group are the nonreportables, often also called small traders. Their positions are below the reporting level and are not shown individually. Instead, their total position is derived arithmetically from the open interest and the reported positions of the other groups.
In many commodity markets commercials are often net short because producers hedge future harvests or output. The absolute value therefore matters less than the historical context of the positioning. That is what the CoT Index is for.
Because every long contract is matched by a short contract, the net positions of all groups offset each other. This gives:
Net small traders = -(net commercials + net non-commercials)
Distinction
The Disaggregated report uses a finer split of market participants, for example into producer/merchant, swap dealers, managed money and other reportables. These categories do not map fully onto the Legacy groups but are based on a more detailed classification.
The Legacy report goes back the furthest. It therefore remains particularly useful when a long and comparable historical time series of the CoT Report is needed.
The Open Interest shows the total number of open contracts. The trader groups additionally show how these open positions are distributed across different market participants.
Sources
Related terms
- CoT Report (Commitments of Traders, CFTC report)
- CoT Index (Commercial index, COT index)
- Open Interest Range (Open interest over three years)
- Open Interest (OI, open contracts)
All market and analytical information is provided for educational and analytical purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a trading recommendation.