Commitment of Traders (COT) Financial Futures Report

The Commitment of Traders (COT) Financial Futures Report is published by the CFTC to help the public understand market dynamics. It is published every Friday at 3:30 pm ET to provide a breakdown of each Tuesday’s open interest for markets in which 20 or more traders hold positions equal to or greater than the reporting levels established by the CFTC.

Learn more about the COT Financial Futures Report by watching this 3 -minute video –

Trader Classification

The COT Financial Futures Report divides the financial futures market participants into the “sell side” and “buy side.” This traditional functional division of financial market participants focuses on their respective roles in the broader marketplace, not whether they are buyers or sellers of futures or option contracts.

Sell Side

• Dealer/Intermediary
  These participants are typically described as the “sell side” of the market. Though they may not predominately sell futures, they do design and sell various financial assets to clients. They tend to have matched books or offset their risk across markets and clients. Futures contracts are part of the pricing and balancing of risk associated with the products they sell and their activities. These include large banks and dealers in securities, swaps and other derivatives.

Buy Side

• Asset Manager/Institutional
  These are institutional investors, including pension funds, endowments, insurance companies, mutual funds and those portfolio/investment managers whose clients are predominantly institutional.
• Leveraged Funds
  These are typically hedge funds and various types of money managers, including registered commodity trading advisors (CTAs), registered commodity pool operators (CPOs), or unregistered funds identified by CFTC. The strategies may involve taking outright positions or arbitrage within and across markets. The traders may be engaged in managing and conducting proprietary futures trading and trading on behalf of speculative clients.
• Other Reportables
  Reportable traders that are not placed into one of the first three categories are placed into the “other reportables” category. The traders in this category mostly are using markets to hedge business risk, whether that risk is related to foreign exchange, equities or interest rates. This category includes corporate treasuries, central banks, smaller banks, mortgage originators, credit unions and any other reportable traders not assigned to the other three categories.

Get Started with NinjaTrader

NinjaTrader supports more than 500,000 traders worldwide with a powerful and user-friendly trading platform, discount futures brokerage and world-class support. NinjaTrader is always free to use for advanced charting & strategy backtesting through an immersive trading simulator.

Download NinjaTrader’s award-winning trading platform and get started with a free trading demo with real-time market data today!

This article is intended for educational and informational purposes only and should not be viewed as a solicitation or recommendation of any product, service or trading strategy. It includes content from independent persons or companies that are in no manner affiliated with NinjaTrader Group (NTG) or any of its affiliates. The content and opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NinjaTrader or any of its affiliates.

Source: https://ninjatrader.com/blog/copy/