Monday 29 August 2016

Things You Need To Know About Commitment Of Traders Report

By Ronald Ellis


Each week, commodity traders obtain a special report that offers them a highlight of positions held by bigger institutions and speculators. The commitment of traders report can be utilized as a sentiment indicator to capitalize on the market and profit from it. The report offers detailed information about the performance of every commodity available in the futures market. Aggressively traded future contracts like currencies, stock indexes, and interest rates have their special COT reports.

Many speculators utilize the COT report in deciding whether or not to pick a long or short position. One assumption is that small speculators are usually wrong and the ideal position is dissimilar to the net non-reportable position. Another notion is that commercial merchants have a clear mastery of their market, and therefore their positions attract more profits.

The COT report details the net long as well as short positions for each existing futures contract for three diverse types of traders. If commodity speculators are tremendously long or increasing their long positions, then a strong bias is expected on that market. A bearish bias on a market is expected when they are either short or amassing their short positions.

Understanding the different type of traders who exist in the commodity market is one-step towards mastering and interpreting the report correctly. The commercial group represents firms and institutions who utilize futures markets to balance out risks in either the cash or spot market. For instance, a corn producer may use shorting of corn futures contracts as way of protecting his or her profits in case the prices decrease in the near term.

Hedge funds, corporate investors, and other agencies who invest massively in the futures market fall into the category of non-commercial speculators. While these investors do not directly engage in the creations, supply, and management of essential assets and commodities, a special attention is paid to their trends. A careful review of their investment trends can provide vital information about a particular class of asset.

Non-reporting category is made up of small investors who never report their positions. They have a habit of betting against trends instead of with it. Thus, only a few people pay attention to this type of investors. The category comprises of private investors who trade in different types of products in the futures market.

COT report exists in different categories such as equity investor consisting of stock futures, commodity traders (gold and oil) and currency traders. It is better to deal with the report itself rather than dealing with raw data released by CFTC. The best strategy for deciphering the report and understanding the market trends is being consistent in seeing how the information is changing for some time.

Changes within open interest are an instrumental tool in mastering the price behaviour of a certain market and tactics for profiting from long-term trends. These changes can be utilized to gauge the general strength as well as the weakness of the trend. For instance, if a market has been experiencing long-term downtrend or uptrend with growing open interest levels, a decrease or balance would be a sign that the trend is approaching its end.




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