Leveraged funds covered the Nasdaq and pressed the Russell

In the Commitments of Traders report for positions as of Tuesday, September 1, 2026, leveraged funds bought back 27,140 contracts of E-mini Nasdaq-100 exposure, cutting a net short of 41,232 contracts to 14,092. Against 1,055 weekly changes in the record, that is the 92nd percentile by absolute size, and it took the group’s COT index, which places the current net position inside its three-year range, from 38.1 to 81.9 in one report.

In the same report the same group added 11,799 contracts to its E-mini Russell 2000 short, taking the net position to 109,499 contracts short, 25.8% of open interest, and the COT index to 2.6, where 0 is the most short the three-year range holds. Large caps were bought and small caps were sold by the fastest money in the futures market in the same week. The report describes Tuesday and says nothing about the three sessions after it, and a crowded reading in either direction has not been a reliable turn signal on its own. What it records is which side of the size trade leveraged funds chose, and how hard.