Commitments of Traders

http://www.cftc.gov/cftc/cftccotreports.htm

Commitments of Traders may not sound at first like a technical term. It may sound like a term describing a relationship of questionable monogamy. Nevertheless, the Commitments of Traders, or COT, as it is sometimes called, is a weekly report published by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (a government agency). It contains a plethora of information both for the most recent reporting period and historical data back to 1986. It is available on line at the link.

Most valuable is probably the information concerning the Commercial holdings. If I were considering taking a position in a currency, I would want to know if the commercials are net long or short that currency. In the Yen, for example, the commercials would be major financial institutions. They are usually on the right side of the market. So if you are interested in seeing what the big money is doing, look there. You could do as the commercials and be considered to have some financial wisdom. As of April 5 the commercials were net long the Yen by a wide margin. Last month they were net short through March 15.