The Commitments of Traders (COT) report is the CFTC’s weekly count of who holds open futures contracts, published Fridays at 3:30 p.m. Eastern with positions as of the prior Tuesday. In the report dated October 13, 2026, NYMEX WTI had 1,900,179 open contracts, and managed money held 171,973 long and 131,399 short, a net of +40,574 contracts.
Those figures describe holdings, not intentions or prices. Most summaries stop at one net number, yet the same week’s block shows managed money also cut its spreading positions by 24,884 contracts, a change the net figure cannot see. The columns add up in a fixed way: every long column plus every spreading column, across all categories and the nonreportable line, equals open interest, and the same holds on the short side. Checking that sum is the fastest way to learn the layout and to catch a misread category. Nothing here is a trading signal. For the contract itself, see the Cushing delivery point guide and the futures curve guide; for spot prices, the WTI price page.
What the report is, who files, and what the CFTC says about it
The CFTC publishes COT reports to help the public understand market dynamics. They break down each Tuesday’s open interest for futures, and for futures and options combined, in markets where at least 20 traders hold positions at or above the CFTC’s reporting levels. Clearing members, futures commission merchants and foreign brokers file the position data. Traders are placed in categories according to their self-reported primary business purpose on CFTC Form 40, and CFTC staff review the classification for reasonableness. Individual trader classifications are not published.
The reporting level for crude oil is 350 contracts, according to 17 CFR 15.03(b); the same section lists 200 for natural gas, 250 for No. 2 heating oil and 150 for unleaded gasoline. If a trader reaches the level in any single month, the firm reports the trader’s whole position in that commodity. The CFTC says reported positions usually represent 70 to 90 percent of total open interest, so the remainder, shown as nonreportable, is positions below the level. The CFTC also states plainly that it does not analyze the COT data or make recommendations based on it. That sentence is worth remembering before you read any column.
The calendar: why the snapshot is already old when it arrives
Table 1. A week in the life of one COT report
| Day | What happens | Consequence for the reader |
|---|---|---|
| Tuesday | Positions are measured at the close, the as-of date | Trades made Wednesday to Friday are not in the report |
| Wednesday and Thursday | Firms report positions; the CFTC says processing takes about three days | Nothing public yet; prices keep moving |
| Friday, 3:30 p.m. ET | The report for the prior Tuesday is released, usually | By release, the market has traded for three sessions since the as-of date |
| Next Tuesday | The next as-of date | The Friday report is already a week old by then |
Source: CFTC, Commitments of Traders overview and historical viewable page (checked October 23, 2026). Holidays change the schedule. The Historical Viewable page notes that the dates it shows are report dates and not release dates.
A reader looking at the October 13 report on Friday, October 16 is seeing a count that is three trading sessions old. A reader looking at it a week later is looking at something older. The report is therefore best used for structure, how the open interest is distributed, rather than for what traders are doing right now.
Which of the four reports for crude
Table 2. The four COT report types
| Report | Covers | Trader classes | History begins |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legacy | All markets, by exchange; futures-only and combined | Commercial and non-commercial | January 15, 1986 |
| Supplemental (CIT) | 13 select agricultural contracts, combined | Non-commercial, commercial and index traders | January 3, 2006 |
| Disaggregated | Agriculture, petroleum and products, natural gas, electricity, metals and other physical contracts | Producer/merchant/processor/user, swap dealers, managed money, other reportables | June 13, 2006 |
| Traders in Financial Futures | Currencies, Treasuries, stock indexes, VIX and similar | Dealer/intermediary, asset manager, leveraged funds, other reportables | June 13, 2006 |
Source: CFTC, Commitments of Traders overview (checked October 23, 2026). Legacy and Disaggregated come in short and long formats; the long format adds concentration ratios and, for Disaggregated, nonreportable positions.
Crude oil lives in the Disaggregated report, in its petroleum and products section. The Legacy report also carries it, with the coarser commercial and non-commercial split. A commercial trader is one that uses futures for hedging under CFTC Regulation 1.3(z), usually after filing Form 40, and a trader can be commercial in one commodity and non-commercial in another. The Disaggregated split is more informative for energy because it separates swap dealers from producers and from funds. The rest of this guide uses the Disaggregated, futures-only, long-format page.
Reading the WTI block, step by step
Step 1: find the right block and the right date
Each market is a block. The block for NYMEX crude is headed WTI-PHYSICAL and carries the CFTC code 067651. The subheading of each block states the report type and date: here, Disaggregated Commitments of Traders, Futures Only, October 13, 2026. The contract size is 1,000 barrels. Check these three things every time. A different code, a combined rather than futures-only report, or an older date will give different numbers.
Step 2: read open interest first
Open interest is the total of contracts entered into and not yet offset, delivered, exercised or otherwise closed. It was 1,900,179 contracts on October 13, up 10,757 from October 6. At 1,000 barrels each, that is 1.90 billion barrels of notional crude, a figure about the size of 18.6 days of the world’s 2026 oil consumption (EIA STEO, 102.43 million barrels a day). The comparison is only a scale device, because open interest counts contracts, not barrels that will be delivered. Aggregate long open interest always equals aggregate short open interest, one buyer for each seller.
Step 3: read the positions by category
Table 3. NYMEX WTI-PHYSICAL positions, October 13, 2026 (contracts of 1,000 barrels)
| Category | Long | Short | Spreading | Net (long minus short) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Producer/Merchant/Processor/User | 660,971 | 307,828 | not reported | +353,143 |
| Swap Dealers | 126,747 | 605,225 | 140,911 | -478,478 |
| Managed Money | 171,973 | 131,399 | 286,687 | +40,574 |
| Other Reportables | 172,680 | 112,911 | 260,071 | +59,769 |
| Nonreportable | 80,139 | 55,147 | not reported | +24,992 |
| Open interest (long plus spreading) | 1,900,179 | 1,900,179 | 0 |
Source: CFTC, Commitments of Traders Long Report, Petroleum (Futures Only), Disaggregated, October 13, 2026, WTI-PHYSICAL, code 067651 (checked October 23, 2026). Net and the totals are this page's arithmetic.
The check at the bottom of Table 3 is the point. Add every category’s long and spreading positions and the sum is 1,900,179, equal to the published open interest of 1,900,179. Add every category’s short and spreading and the sum is 1,900,179, again equal. The nets add to 0, because each long has a short on the other side. If a block you are reading does not tie out, you have misread a column or a unit.
Now the categories. Producer/merchant/processor/user, the physical industry, was net long by 353,143 contracts. Swap dealers were net short by 478,478. Managed money was net long by 40,574. Other reportables were net long by 59,769, and nonreportable traders net long by 24,992. The two big offsetting positions are the physical industry on the long side and swap dealers on the short side. The CFTC defines a swap dealer as a trader that deals primarily in swaps for a commodity and uses futures to manage or hedge the risk from those swaps, which is context for the pairing but not an explanation: the CFTC does not know traders’ specific reasons for positions.
Step 4: read the week-over-week change
Table 4. Change from October 6 to October 13, 2026 (contracts)
| Category | Change in long | Change in short | Change in spreading | Change in net |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Producer/Merchant/Processor/User | +42,215 | +24,082 | not reported | +18,133 |
| Swap Dealers | +9,340 | +26,350 | -17,256 | -17,010 |
| Managed Money | -6,380 | +6,644 | -24,884 | -13,024 |
| Other Reportables | +14,327 | +20 | -9,555 | +14,307 |
| Nonreportable | +2,950 | +5,356 | not reported | -2,406 |
| Open interest | +10,757 |
Source: CFTC, same report, 'Changes in Commitments from October 6, 2026.' Change in net and the total are this page's arithmetic.
The changes also tie out: the long and spreading changes sum to +10,757, the published change in open interest of +10,757. Look at managed money. Its longs fell by 6,380, its shorts rose by 6,644, so its net position fell by 13,024 to +40,574, and its spreading positions fell by 24,884. The headline “funds cut bullish bets” is one reading of the first two numbers. It leaves out the larger move in spreading, a reduction in offsetting long and short positions held by the same traders, and it says nothing about price.
Step 5: look at the number of traders and concentration
The long format adds trader counts. In this report 307 traders in all held reportable positions. Managed money had 58 traders long and 30 short; swap dealers 12 long and 30 short; the physical industry 60 long and 56 short. The counts can exceed the total because a trader may appear in the long or short count and also in the spreading count. The CFTC replaces a count with a dot where a category has fewer than four traders, to protect confidentiality. Concentration ratios show the share of open interest held by the largest four and eight traders: on a gross basis, the four largest long positions were 18.1 percent of open interest and the four largest shorts 22.3 percent; for the eight largest, 32.0 and 32.2 percent. Net of each trader’s offsetting positions the figures are 11.2 and 14.7 for four, and 18.7 and 21.6 for eight.
Table 5. Concentration restated in contracts, October 13, 2026
| Measure | Share of open interest | Contracts |
|---|---|---|
| Four largest longs, gross | 18.1% | 343,932 |
| Four largest shorts, gross | 22.3% | 423,740 |
| Eight largest longs, gross | 32.0% | 608,057 |
| Eight largest shorts, gross | 32.2% | 611,858 |
| Four largest longs, net | 11.2% | 212,820 |
| Four largest shorts, net | 14.7% | 279,326 |
Source: CFTC, same report, concentration ratios (checked October 23, 2026). Contracts are this page's multiplication of open interest by each published percentage and are rounded.
Table 6. Average position per trader, by category and side
| Category and side | Contracts | Traders | Average per trader | Average as share of open interest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Producer/Merchant/Processor/User, long | 660,971 | 60 | 11,016 | 0.58% |
| Producer/Merchant/Processor/User, short | 307,828 | 56 | 5,497 | 0.29% |
| Swap Dealers, long | 126,747 | 12 | 10,562 | 0.56% |
| Swap Dealers, short | 605,225 | 30 | 20,174 | 1.06% |
| Swap Dealers, spreading | 140,911 | 32 | 4,403 | 0.23% |
| Managed Money, long | 171,973 | 58 | 2,965 | 0.16% |
| Managed Money, short | 131,399 | 30 | 4,380 | 0.23% |
| Managed Money, spreading | 286,687 | 55 | 5,212 | 0.27% |
| Other Reportables, long | 172,680 | 66 | 2,616 | 0.14% |
| Other Reportables, short | 112,911 | 41 | 2,754 | 0.14% |
| Other Reportables, spreading | 260,071 | 63 | 4,128 | 0.22% |
Source: CFTC, same report, positions and number of traders (checked October 23, 2026). Averages are this page's division; a trader can appear in more than one row, and an average hides a skewed distribution.
The averages show how different the categories are in structure. Thirty swap dealers hold the 605,225 short contracts, about 20,000 each, roughly seven times the average managed money long of about 3,000 across 58 funds. The same table is a warning about the headline numbers: a category with 12 or 30 firms can move sharply when one of them changes its book, and the report cannot say whether one firm or many were responsible. The CFTC suppresses a trader count below four for that reason.
Step 6: express positions as shares of open interest
Contracts are hard to compare across weeks when open interest changes. Divide each by open interest. Managed money’s long was 9.1 percent of open interest and its short 6.9 percent; swap dealers held 31.9 percent short; the physical industry held 34.8 percent long and 16.2 percent short. In shares, managed money’s net long is 2.1 percent of open interest, a number that stays interpretable when the market grows. Barrels make the point differently: a net of 40,574 contracts is 40.6 million barrels of paper, about 0.40 of a day of world consumption.
Rebuilding the prior week from the changes
The report prints changes, not the prior week’s positions, but the prior week can be reconstructed by subtracting each change from the current figure. That is a useful check, because the reconstructed week should also tie out, and it gives a second set of numbers to compare. The CFTC states that published historical data are not backdated or updated, so the reconstruction should match the report dated October 6 if you have it.
Table 7. October 6, 2026 positions reconstructed from the October 13 report
| Category | Oct 6 long | Oct 6 short | Oct 6 net | Oct 13 net | Change in net |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Producer/Merchant/Processor/User | 618,756 | 283,746 | +335,010 | +353,143 | +18,133 |
| Swap Dealers | 117,407 | 578,875 | -461,468 | -478,478 | -17,010 |
| Managed Money | 178,353 | 124,755 | +53,598 | +40,574 | -13,024 |
| Other Reportables | 158,353 | 112,891 | +45,462 | +59,769 | +14,307 |
| Nonreportable | 77,189 | 49,791 | +27,398 | +24,992 | -2,406 |
| Open interest | 1,889,422 | 1,889,422 |
Source: October 13, 2026 positions and changes from the CFTC report, with prior-week values computed by subtraction (this page's arithmetic). The open interest row shows total open interest, which each side equals.
The managed money net position was +53,598 contracts on October 6, which was 2.84 percent of the 1,889,422 contracts of open interest then, and +40,574 on October 13, which was 2.14 percent of open interest. A net position can shrink in contracts and in share of open interest at the same time even though open interest grew, because the denominator rose by 10,757 contracts while the numerator fell by 13,024. Notice also that the swap dealer net short widened by 17,010 contracts, to 478,478, while the physical industry’s net long increased by 18,133. The largest changes in the week were on those two lines, not on the managed money line that tends to get the attention. A reader who looks at only one category can be misled about where the week’s change occurred.
Four headlines this week’s table could produce
Table 8. What a table supports and what a headline adds
| Headline | What the October 13 table supports | What it leaves out |
|---|---|---|
| “Funds cut bullish bets” | Managed money long fell 6,380 and short rose 6,644, so net fell 13,024 | Spreading fell 24,884, a larger move; nothing about price or intent |
| “Swap dealers pile on shorts” | Swap dealer short rose 26,350, net short widened 17,010 | Their long rose 9,340 and spreading fell 17,256; swap books hedge swaps held elsewhere |
| “Producers hedge more” | PMPU long +42,215 and short +24,082, net long +18,133 | The category includes users as well as producers, and both sides grew |
| “Open interest rises” | Open interest +10,757 to 1,900,179, about 0.6 percent | Says nothing about who opened the contracts |
Source: CFTC, same report; differences are this page's arithmetic. Quoted headlines are illustrative phrases, not citations of any publication.
What each category is, in the CFTC’s words
- Producer/Merchant/Processor/User: predominantly engages in the production, processing, packing or handling of a physical commodity and uses futures to manage or hedge risks associated with that business. The report shows long and short only.
- Swap Dealer: deals primarily in swaps for a commodity and uses futures to manage or hedge the risk of those swaps.
- Managed Money: a registered commodity trading advisor, a registered commodity pool operator, or an unregistered fund identified by the CFTC, which manages futures trading for clients.
- Other Reportables: every reportable trader not placed in one of the other three.
- Nonreportable: total open interest minus total reportable positions; the number and classification of these traders are unknown.
- Spreading: offsetting long and short positions held by one trader, such as futures in different calendar months, or offsetting futures and options. Inter-market spreads are not counted.
The category labels describe businesses, not motives
Classification comes from a trader’s self-reported primary business on Form 40, reviewed by CFTC staff. A fund and an airline can hold the same net position for entirely different reasons, and the report shows only the holding. Treat every category label as a description of what the firm is.
Two caveats that change which report you compare
Futures-only and combined reports are different series: the combined report adds options converted to futures equivalents using exchange delta factors, so compare like with like. And the CFTC does not backdate or update published historical data, so a series built from old releases will not match a later restatement.
A five-minute reading routine
- Confirm the market name, the CFTC code and the contract size.
- Confirm the report type (Disaggregated or Legacy), futures-only or combined, and the as-of date.
- Write down open interest and its weekly change.
- Compute net long minus short for each category and check that the nets sum to zero.
- Check that long plus spreading sums to open interest on both sides.
- Convert key positions to a percentage of open interest and, if useful, to barrels.
- Read the changes by category, including spreading, before describing a move.
- Say what the report does not show, then stop. Do not infer a price direction.
COT report questions
When is the Commitments of Traders report released, and for what date?
The CFTC generally releases the reports on Fridays at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time, using positions as of the preceding Tuesday. Processing takes about three days. Holidays can move the release, and the CFTC publishes a separate release schedule. The date shown on a historical report is the report date, not the release date.
Which COT report should I use for crude oil?
The Disaggregated report covers petroleum and products and splits positions into four trader classes: producer/merchant/processor/user, swap dealers, managed money and other reportables. The older Legacy report splits only into commercial and non-commercial. Both are published as futures-only and as futures-and-options combined. The Disaggregated futures-only long format includes concentration ratios and nonreportable positions.
What does the CFTC code 067651 identify?
It is the CFTC contract-market code printed in the header of the WTI-PHYSICAL block for the New York Mercantile Exchange crude oil contract, whose size is 1,000 barrels. Other markets in the same petroleum report carry their own codes, so search by code when a name is unfamiliar.
Is managed money the same as speculators?
Not by the CFTC’s definition. Managed money is a category defined by registration and business: a registered commodity trading advisor, a registered commodity pool operator, or certain unregistered funds identified by the CFTC, who manage futures trading for clients. The CFTC does not know traders’ reasons for specific positions, so the label describes what a firm is, not why it holds a position.
Can I tell whether prices will rise from the net position?
No, and the CFTC says it does not analyze the data or make recommendations from it. A net position is the difference between long and short contracts in one category on one Tuesday. It does not show entry prices, hedges held elsewhere, options, other exchanges or the reason for the position. This guide explains how to read the report, not how to trade on it.
Why do the long and short columns not add up to open interest?
Because of spreading. In the Disaggregated report, swap dealers, managed money and other reportables show long, short and spreading positions, where spreading is the amount of offsetting long and short positions a single trader holds. Add each category’s long and its spreading, plus producer/merchant long and nonreportable long, and the total equals open interest. The same holds on the short side.
Data and sources: U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Commitments of Traders and Explanatory Notes, checked October 23, 2026 (release schedule, report types, history start dates, reportable positions, commercial and non-commercial definitions, open interest, concentration ratios, trader-count suppression, usage statements). CFTC, Disaggregated Explanatory Notes, checked October 23, 2026 (category definitions and spreading). CFTC, Commitments of Traders Long Report, Petroleum (Futures Only), Disaggregated, October 13, 2026, WTI-PHYSICAL, code 067651, checked October 23, 2026 (positions, changes from October 6, trader counts, concentration). CFTC, Historical Viewable reports, checked October 23, 2026. U.S. eCFR, 17 CFR 15.03(b), checked October 23, 2026 (reporting levels: crude oil, sweet 350 contracts; natural gas 200; No. 2 heating oil 250; unleaded gasoline 150). EIA, Short-Term Energy Outlook, October 2026, Table 3a, checked October 23, 2026 (2026 world consumption of 102.43 million barrels a day, used only for scale). Nets, sums, shares and the barrel conversions are this page’s arithmetic. The CFTC report pages update weekly; the figures here are those of the October 13, 2026 report. After the October 20 report is released, the live long-report page shows that week instead, and the October 13 report is normally added to the CFTC Historical Viewable page linked above.