Crowd · PositioningWho Is Long, Who Is Short
All markets
| Market | Speculators net | 3-year rank | 4 weeks | Hedgers net | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Top: weekly price of the futures contract. Below: each group's longs minus shorts as a share of all open contracts. Positions are as of each Tuesday and published the following Friday. Drag to scroll back, scroll or pinch to zoom, double-click for fullscreen.
Crowd Positioning in 30 seconds
Every week, traders holding large futures positions report them to the US regulator (the CFTC). This page shows which side each group is on, and how crowded that side is compared with the last three years. It describes positioning; it does not forecast prices.
Speculators
Funds and traders betting on direction (the CFTC’s “non-commercial” group). Net long means they hold more bets on a rise than on a fall. They usually follow the trend.
Hedgers
Producers and users of the underlying, such as miners, farmers, airlines and banks, protecting their business (“commercial”). They usually lean against the trend, so their line mirrors the speculators’.
3-year rank
Where the speculators’ position sits in its own 3-year range: 0 is the most short they have been, 100 the most long. 90 or more is tagged as a 3-year long extreme, 10 or less a short extreme. A market can be net short and still at a long extreme, when it is the least short it has been.
What it is not
A timing signal. We tested 20 markets from 2006 to 2026: when speculators were at a 3-year extreme, prices over the next 4 and 13 weeks did no better or worse than usual (no result stronger than chance). Extremes can last for months.
What every number on this page means
- Speculators net
- Non-commercial longs minus shorts (spread positions left out), divided by all open contracts.
- Hedgers net
- Commercial longs minus shorts, divided by all open contracts.
- Small traders
- Positions too small to be reported individually (the CFTC’s “non-reportable” group): longs minus shorts as a share of open interest.
- 3-year rank
- The share of the last 156 weekly readings that were at or below this week’s speculator net.
- 4 weeks
- How much the speculator net moved over the last four reports, in points of open interest.
- Open interest
- All contracts still open. Rising open interest with a rising speculator net means new money is joining; falling open interest means positions are being closed.
- Dates
- Positions are counted at the close every Tuesday and published on Friday afternoon (later after US holidays). The price chart is the front futures contract, weekly.
- Markets
- The CFTC legacy futures-only report: CME stock index futures (E-mini S&P 500, Nasdaq-100 mini, Russell 2000 E-mini), COMEX metals, NYMEX energy, CBOT Treasuries and grains, CME currencies and bitcoin, and Cboe VIX futures.
Good to know. Source: U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Commitments of Traders. This describes reported positions; it is not a signal to buy or sell.
For education only. Data comes from the CFTC and third-party price sources and may be delayed or wrong. Past patterns do not predict future results, and nothing here is investment advice or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold anything. See the Terms and Disclaimer.