FIG 01 — SMART MONEY POSITIONING
Who is long, who is short, and what changed this week — across every major market.
Data as of Tue 2026-07-21 · released Fridays 3:30 PM ET · next update 2026-07-31
Crowded longs
2
3Y index ≥ 80
Crowded shorts
5
3Y index ≤ 20
Flips this week
0
net direction changed
| Bias | Long / Short % | Expand | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HGCopper | 71,515 | 11,330 | 96 | Bullish | 32.7 / 6.2 | |
| BTCBitcoin | -7,949 | 458 | 85 | Bearish | 19.7 / 58.4 | |
| GCGold | 124,831 | 4,052 | 62 | Bullish | 36.9 / 4.3 | |
| 6AAustralian Dollar | 24,788 | 2,434 | 60 | Bullish | 23.8 / 12.8 | |
| ESE-mini S&P 500 | -322,865 | 42,137 | 59 | Bearish | 7.6 / 24.2 | |
| 6SSwiss Franc | -8,897 | 603 | 49 | Bearish | 8.9 / 17.1 | |
| 6BBritish Pound | 33,236 | 4,695 | 48 | Bullish | 26.1 / 13.4 | |
| DXUS Dollar Index | -1,938 | 2,928 | 44 | Bearish | 30.3 / 33.9 | |
| SISilver | 11,282 | 219 | 35 | Bullish | 17.1 / 6.5 | |
| ZNUS 10Y T-Note | -2,064,805 | 14,848 | 32 | Bearish | 7.3 / 46.4 | |
| CLWTI Crude Oil | 63,979 | 2,005 | 30 | Bullish | 10.1 / 6.6 | |
| NGNatural Gas | -102,756 | 2,953 | 22 | Bearish | 13.9 / 20.1 | |
| 6JJapanese Yen | -96,185 | 5,724 | 12 | Bearish | 19.1 / 41.8 | |
| 6CCanadian Dollar | -98,377 | 5,606 | 4 | Bearish | 8.6 / 35.6 | |
| 6EEuro FX | -56,671 | 2,980 | 0 | Bearish | 11.4 / 18.5 | |
| 6NNew Zealand Dollar | -31,086 | 2,084 | 0 | Bearish | 4.7 / 33.3 | |
| NQNasdaq 100 Mini | -74,690 | 10,527 | 0 | Bearish | 16.2 / 42.2 |
Bias shows which way large speculators are leaning: Bullish = net long (betting the price rises), Bearish = net short. Spec Net is their long minus short contracts. Click any row (or the › arrow) to expand the full chart, history and read.
FIG 03 — FIELD MANUAL
01
When large speculators are net long an instrument, they are betting its price will rise — that is bullish positioning, and we tag it Bullish (green). Net short means they are betting on a fall — bearish (red). The bigger the net position and the more extreme the 3-year index, the stronger that lean. So a green Bullish tag with a high index means speculators are heavily, and increasingly, betting the instrument goes up.
02
Leveraged Funds are hedge funds and CTAs (commodity trading advisors): professional speculators who trade with borrowed leverage, move fast, and flip direction quickly to chase trends and short-term moves. They hold nothing physical — they are in the market purely to bet on price. Because their positioning is the cleanest read on active speculation, this is the figure our Bias badge and insights track. When they crowd to an extreme or flip direction, that is the signal that matters.
03
Asset Managers are institutional investors — pension funds, insurers, endowments and mutual funds — managing money on behalf of others. They are large, slow and structural: they build positions to express long-term views or hedge portfolios, and turn slowly rather than trading the swings. Think of them as the ballast, not the speedboat. When Asset Managers and Leveraged Funds disagree — say leveraged funds pile short while asset managers stay long — that divergence between fast and slow money is worth watching.
04
They answer to different mandates and clocks. Leveraged Funds trade a two-week momentum move or a tactical reversal; Asset Managers build a two-year structural allocation. So they can genuinely point opposite ways at the same time — fast money fading or front-running a move that slow money is only beginning to join, or hasn't finished exiting. The split isn't noise; it's the tension between short-term speculation and long-term conviction.
05
When both point the SAME way — leveraged funds and asset managers net long together — the move has broad backing across fast and slow money, so the trend has stronger structural support and tends to persist. When they run INVERSE — one long, one short — treat it as a tension flag: someone is early or someone is wrong. At crowded extremes, an inverse split often precedes a turn, and the tell is which side capitulates first. Fast money usually moves first; if it flips back toward the slow-money side, the divergence is resolving in real money's favour.
06
Every Friday the CFTC publishes positions held as of Tuesday's close. Three groups matter: commercials (producers, merchants and dealers hedging real exposure), large speculators (leveraged funds and managed money betting on direction), and small traders below reporting thresholds. Speculator positioning is the trend signal; commercial positioning is the hedging counterweight.
07
Data is collected Tuesday and released Friday at 3:30 PM ET. That makes COT a swing- and position-trading tool for multi-day to multi-week moves — it cannot time intraday entries. Use the Friday release to confirm shifts that developed during the week.
08
The 3-year index normalizes today's net position inside its 156-week range: 100 means speculators have never been more net long in three years, 0 never more net short. Readings above 80 or below 20 flag crowded positioning.
09
The most common mistake is treating an extreme as an automatic reversal trade. Positioning can stay stretched for 4–12 weeks while the trend keeps running. Treat extremes as risk flags: tighten stops, reduce size, and wait for price confirmation — a broken trendline, a failed high, a fundamental catalyst.
10
When speculators cross from net long to net short (or back), it reflects a genuine change of conviction rather than profit-taking. Flips that occur at stretched index levels and coincide with technical breaks have historically marked multi-week trend changes.
11
For currencies, indices, rates and crypto we use the Traders in Financial Futures (TFF) report and track Leveraged Funds — the cleanest speculative money. For metals and energy we use the Disaggregated report and track Managed Money. The old Legacy report mixes swap dealers with hedgers and blurs the signal.