COT Charts

When you login you will be greeted with our COT Index Grid, which acts as an overview table showing you how commercial traders are positioned relative to the last 36, 18 and 6 months (more on this below), it also shows you the percentage change in positions from the previous week by both commercials and non-commercials and also seasonal direction for the current month, for each market.

A detailed explanation of each of the columns in this table can be found below.

1. Class
This refers to the classification of each market so they can be grouped together for easier analysis. 

2. Commercials Index 36, Index 18, Index 6
This indicates the current percentage values for commercial traders for each market over each of the 3 look back periods. Values of 90% and above are coloured dark orange as markets approaching 100% typically indicate a bullish trend change is approaching and this could present buying opportunities for reversal traders, while values of 10% and below are coloured light orange as markets approaching 0% typically indicate a bearish trend change is approaching and could present selling opportunities.
                                       
The colour indicators are there to help you identify a watch-list of tradeable markets for the coming weeks. 100% and 0% does not mean you should instantly start buying or selling, you will need to find safe entries on the chart using sound technical analysis. Markets showing either 100% or 0% on their 36 month index, indicate a more significant trend change is possible when compared to the 6 month index. Markets that have all 3 look back periods highlighted will warrant further analysis as this indicates ideal reversal trading conditions.

It is worth noting that markets that do not show highlighted CoT Index values, typically indicate that the current trend/structure is free to continue in its current direction.
3. Commercial % Change
Looks at the change in positioning from the previous week in both long and short contracts by commercial traders. Extreme changes in positioning from week to week are often accompanied by changes in market direction. The percentage value will flash orange if the figure is greater than any value seen in the last 12 months 
 
4. Non-commercial % Change
Looks at the change in positioning from the previous week in both long and short contracts by non-commercial traders. Extreme changes in positioning from week to week are often accompanied by changes in market direction.
 
5. Seasonality
The arrow indicates the seasonal tendency for a market to finish the current month higher or lower than it started. The size of the move is not indicated and should only be used as a reference from which carry out further analysis. The full available historic data for each market was used to calculate its monthly tendency.

 

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COT Charts Analysis

Once you've evaluated the figues on the table, the next thing you should do is to dig a little deeper into the markets that you are interested in. By clicking on the chart icon to the left of each market name, you will be able to access a weekly price chart of that market along with its full CoT history. 

There are 3 COT graphs below each price chart, and these show various parts of the COT report by default, but its important to note that all these graphs can be changed to show what ever piece of COT data you wish to analyse.    
2. Commercial Positions
Graph No-2 will always show commercial positions in full, meaning you will be able to see their long (green), short (red), and net (blue), positions for the full history of that market. This allows you to see very quickly how bullish or bearish they are on a market by comparing the current levels of their long and shorts with similar periods in their history.

Just like the Index graph above, this graph can be changed to show the positions of non-commercials, non-reportables and open interest. In addition however, you can also change this graph to the positions from any other market if you are looking for correlations, as well as change this to show a different index to the one above or even plot the weekly percentage change.

There are a lot of ways you can view the data here, so take some time to get used to the full functionality. 3. Non-Commercial Positions
Graph No-3 will always show non-commercial positions in full, allowing you to easily compare their current levels of buying and selling to any period in the past. This will show you if they are actively driving trends, as well as reaching extremes in their positions, which often indicates exhaustion of a current market trend.   

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Seasonal Charts

You will know already that there is a seasonal section on our website, providing detailed seasonal charts covering stocks, stock indices, forex, metals, energies and many other major commodity markets, but what you may not be aware of is that those seasonal charts can also be accessed on our COT Charts page, so you can quickly cross-check a markets expected seasonal bias against how traders are positioned.  

Seasonality and the commitments of traders go very well together. Seasonality allows you to see how a market could perform in the future, while COT allows you to see how traders are positioning themselves ahead of that seasonal period, so you can see if that seasonal performance is likely or not. Seasonal bullish periods will need to show accumulation in COT while seasonal bearish will need to show distribution in COT.