Commitment of Traders: Smart-Money Positioning & the COT Index
Weekly CFTC futures positioning for the markets that matter to equity investors — stock indices, Treasuries, the dollar, gold, oil. We track the speculative “smart money” (leveraged funds and managed money) and normalize each market’s net into a 3-year COT Index: 0 = most net-short in three years, 100 = most net-long.
This week’s reading
As of the July 28, 2026 CFTC report, the most crowded short among the speculative crowd is Euro FX (COT Index 0, i.e. near its 3-year most net-short), and the most crowded long is Copper (COT Index 90.3). The COT Index normalizes each market’s net position into a 0–100 percentile of its trailing three-year range; extremes are contrarian context, not timing signals.
Sources, methodology & freshnessLast updated 2026-07-28 · Open ↓Close ↑
FX · Leveraged Funds positioning at its most net-short end of the trailing 3-year range (net short -65K today) — the most stretched of the markets we track.
The positioning board
| Market | Class | Net | Net % OI | COT Index (3y) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Euro FX | FX | -65K | -7.95% | 0 |
| E-mini Nasdaq-100 | Equity Index | -58K | -19.78% | 3 |
| 10-Year T-Note | Rates | -2.16M | -40.57% | 17 |
| Silver | Metals | +9K | 8.6% | 19 |
| E-mini Russell 2000 | Equity Index | -75K | -17.89% | 21 |
| WTI Crude Oil | Energy | +93K | 5% | 38 |
| Gold | Metals | +120K | 31.15% | 43 |
| 30-Year T-Bond | Rates | -390K | -20.95% | 52 |
| US Dollar Index | FX | -2K | -2.75% | 54 |
| E-mini S&P 500 | Equity Index | -297K | -14.99% | 70 |
| VIX Futures | Volatility | -12K | -3.58% | 77 |
| 2-Year T-Note | Rates | -1.56M | -35.5% | 81 |
| Copper | Metals | +65K | 23.68% | 90 |
Bars below 20 (red) = crowded short; above 80 (green) = crowded long. Smart money = leveraged funds (financials) / managed money (commodities).
COT Index history + futures price
Futures price: TradeStation continuous front-month contract, aligned to each weekly COT report date. The contrarian read is when the COT Index hits an extreme against the price trend.
Euro FX — every trader group
The Traders in Financial Futures report splitsEuro FX positioning into three reportable groups. Net contracts (longs − shorts) for each — they largely net against each other, so this is the clearest view of who is on which side.
Net = long contracts minus short (left axis); the faint grey line is the Euro FX futures price (right axis). Dashed line marks zero — the flip between net-long and net-short.
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How Commitment of Traders (COT) Works
- 1Pull the weekly CFTC reportEvery Friday at 3:30pm ET the CFTC publishes the Commitments of Traders report — futures positioning as of the prior Tuesday, broken out by trader category. We fetch it straight from the CFTC, the authoritative source, for a curated set of equity-index, rates, FX, and commodity markets.
- 2Isolate the "smart money"For financial futures (equity indices, Treasuries, FX) we track Leveraged Funds — the hedge-fund category. For physical commodities (gold, oil, copper) we track Managed Money. Both are the speculative, trend-following money whose net position is the most-watched COT signal.
- 3Compute the net position and the COT IndexNet = longs minus shorts. Because raw net contracts aren’t comparable across markets, we also compute the COT Index: where this week’s net sits as a percentile of its own trailing 3-year range. A reading near 0 is the most net-short in three years; near 100 is the most net-long.
- 4Publish a dated, plain-English readingEach market gets its current net, net as a share of open interest, the COT Index, and a one-week change — dated to the Tuesday it reflects. Positioning extremes are cycle context, not timing signals.