Technical Trading Tips and Techniques by 
The Commitments of Traders (COT) Report is issued weekly by the CFTC (U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission), and can be a great sentiment tool for spot forex traders. Of special note to forex traders is the futures report from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), which provides information on futures positions for the major currencies against the U.S. dollar. Though the report is issued on Fridays and delayed by 3 days, it can be very useful in figuring out the general positioning of major market players. COT data is perhaps most useful when there there is extreme net positioning on the part of the “Non-Commercial” traders. These are the large speculative players like banks and hedge funds. When these Non-Commercials are net-positioned either extremely long or extremely short, it can potentially be a sign of an impending turn. It may take some time to get used to using the COT report for trading purposes, but if one watches it every week over time, patterns begin to emerge. Here is the link to the report: http://www.cftc.gov/dea/futures/deacmesf.htm .
- James
James Chen is the Chief Technical Analyst at FX Solutions, a leading Forex broker. He is also a registered Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA) and a Chartered Market Technician (CMT) Level 3 candidate. At FX Solutions, Mr. Chen writes daily currency analysis, conducts forex trading seminars, and has authored numerous articles on currency trading and technical analysis for major financial publications. His upcoming book, Essentials of Foreign Exchange Trading
there are daily volume and open interest information provide by CMT so there is no need to wait week??????
Hi mshmsh,
Thanks for your comment! The key is not the volume or the open interest, but the net positioning by the major market players. Thanks again.
- James
Can you explain in detail how to apply into spot forex.
Hi Gan,
Thanks for your comment. Yes, I will write a post soon on how to apply the COT report to Forex trading. Thanks, Gan.
- James