Positioning
The Commitment of Traders (COT) report is a weekly CFTC release breaking down futures positions by trader category, such as commercials and managed money. For gold and silver it shows how different participant groups are positioned.
The Commitment of Traders (COT) report is published weekly by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). It breaks down open positions in futures markets, including COMEX gold and silver, into categories of traders so the market can see who is long and who is short.
For a bullion trader, COT is a positioning lens that price alone does not show. By tracking how commercials, managed money, swap dealers, and other reportables shift week to week, a trader can gauge crowding, sponsorship of a trend, and where positioning sits versus history.
The report is released with a lag and reflects a snapshot, not live data, and its categories organize positions without revealing exact intent. COT is read as context to combine with price, open interest, and macro events rather than as a standalone timing signal.
Common questions
The Commitment of Traders (COT) report is a weekly release from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) that breaks down open futures positions — including COMEX gold and silver — by category of trader, such as commercials (hedgers), managed money, and swap dealers. It lets the market see who is long and who is short, information that price alone does not reveal.
The CFTC publishes the COT report every Friday at 3:30 pm U.S. Eastern time, and it reflects positions as of the close of the preceding Tuesday. That built-in lag means the data describes how participants were positioned earlier in the week rather than in real time — a freshness caveat worth keeping in mind when reading it.
COT covers COMEX (U.S.) futures, not MCX, but because MCX gold is derived from the global price through import parity, COMEX positioning is part of the backdrop that moves the international leg of the MCX price. Indian bullion traders read COT to gauge whether large speculators or commercials are crowded or lightly positioned in gold and silver, then weigh that alongside the USDINR rate and local demand. Bullion Brains' COT Report Analysis turns the weekly CFTC data into trader-group charts for exactly this kind of read.
Educational reference only. Definitions describe how traders use these concepts and are not investment advice or a recommendation to trade.
