CFTC Commitments of Traders · Decoded & Explained

The market's biggest players have to show their hand.

Every week the CFTC publishes exactly how commercial hedgers and large speculators are positioned across 47 markets. COTVault turns that raw report into 30+ readable panels — with a plain-English AI read on every one, and a 30-lesson academy that teaches you the craft as you go.

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Free forever plan · Every panel explained · Updated every Friday from the CFTC

COT Scanner — every market ranked by positioning
47
Markets tracked
20yr
Positioning history
Weekly
CFTC data, every Friday
30+
Intelligence panels
The idea

Banks and funds can't hide their positions. You just couldn't read them — until now.

Big institutions are legally required to report their futures positions to the government every week. That report — the Commitment of Traders — is public, but it lands as a wall of numbers. COTVault reads it for you: who's crowded, who's building, who's trapped, and where the hedgers and the crowd sit on opposite sides.

The COTVault difference

Every panel explains itself — in plain English

Most COT tools hand you charts and wish you luck. Every COTVault panel carries a built-in explainer, a plain-English AI read of this week’s data, and a Listen button that reads it aloud. If you can read a sentence, you can read positioning.

  • A fresh AI read on every panel, every week — what the data means, not just the numbers
  • “HOW TO READ THIS” on every board — the built-in course, one click open
  • A 30-lesson COT Academy plus a free Field Manual documenting every gauge and number
A COTVault panel with its plain-English AI read and built-in explainer
The whole board, at a glance

Every market, ranked by positioning

Stop opening 47 charts. One scan of the board shows you who's crowded long, who's net short, and where this week's biggest shifts happened.

  • Long/short share for every market, sorted by extremity
  • Net position, open interest and weekly change side by side
  • A plain-English AI read of the whole board before you dig in
COT Scanner board
This week's movers

See who piled in — and who bailed

The COT Flow board ranks every market by this week's positioning shift, so the money that just moved is the money you see first.

  • Ranked weekly net-position shifts across the entire universe
  • Rising vs. falling open interest — fresh conviction or just squaring
  • Click any market to open its full net-position history
COT Flow — weekly movers
Understand the players

Three groups, one tug-of-war

Commercials (the hedgers), large speculators (the trend crowd) and small traders are always on opposite sides. COTVault shows you exactly who holds each market — and who's building.

  • Net position and trend for all three cohorts, per market
  • Price overlaid on positioning so you see who's early and who's late
  • Composition breakdown — every contract, both sides, 100% of open interest
The Players — commercials, large specs, small traders
The intelligence layer

Pressure, lifecycle and the trap

Positioning isn't a signal on its own — the edge is in the trajectory. COTVault's engines track how tension builds toward an extreme, and flag the moment the crowd that was right starts to get caught.

  • Pressure & squeeze gauge — how loaded a market is, and how compressed
  • Trend lifecycle — early, mature, exhaustion or shift
  • Trap risk — how far into the danger zone the crowd has pushed
Pressure & Squeeze Gauge
Proof, not promises

Does the signal actually work?

Every COT signal, backtested across 47 markets since 2006, ranked by measured edge and proven trade by trade. No cherry-picking — the losers are graded F right next to the winners.

  • 20 years of history, entry the week after each report (no lookahead)
  • Hit rate, average return, payoff ratio and edge-vs-drift for each signal
  • Every firing logged — win or loss — so you can judge for yourself
COT Edge Lab — backtest scoreboard
The suite

Three levels. Beginner to institutional.

COTVault is built as a learning ladder — every panel teaches as it reads, so you grow from the basics to the proprietary engines without ever leaving the data.

Beginner

The Fundamentals

The building blocks of positioning — read the report the way the pros first learned to.

  • The Players & the three groups
  • The COT Index
  • Open interest & net-change flow
Intermediate

The Sharper Cut

Managed money, leveraged funds, divergence, velocity and structure — the deeper reads.

  • Specialists, extremes & percentiles
  • Divergence, velocity & structure
  • Trend lifecycle & the trap
Advanced

The Proprietary Engines

The COTVault edge — pressure, patterns, crowding and the backtested Edge Lab.

  • Pressure & squeeze gauge
  • Pattern library & crowding evolution
  • The Edge Lab — proof it works
Inside the vault

A panel for every question

COT Intelligence overviewCOT Intelligence
Trend Lifecycle & the TrapTrend Lifecycle
COT Extremes ScreenerExtremes Screener
Divergence DetectionDivergence Detection
Crowding EvolutionCrowding Evolution
COT Edge LabEdge Lab
On your charts

The COTVault indicator suite for TradingView

Six COTVault indicators drawn directly on your own charts — including the only COT indicators on TradingView that read FX cross pairs like EURGBP, AUDNZD and CADJPY. The Classic indicator is free for everyone, forever. Vault members get the full suite with alerts — and every indicator we build next is included, at no extra cost.

COT Classic + FX Crosses on TradingViewCOT Classic + FX Crosses · Free
COT Index Pro with extreme markers and alertsCOT Index Pro · Alerts
COT Divergence with on-chart arrowsCOT Divergence
COT Flow weekly positioning momentumCOT Flow
COT Crowding whale concentrationCOT Crowding · Whale Watch
COT Pressure coiled-spring gaugeCOT Pressure
Who it's for

Built for traders who follow the money

📊

Futures & forex traders

Position with the commercials instead of against them. See crowding and exhaustion before price confirms it.

🎓

Traders who want to learn COT

Every panel teaches as it reads. Start at the three groups and work up to the proprietary engines — no course required.

🧭

Macro & swing traders

Positioning is a weekly context layer. Use it alongside your price and macro read — never as a standalone trigger.

Pricing

Two plans. Nothing gated inside.

Start free forever. One upgrade opens the whole vault. Cancel anytime.

Free
$0/forever

The classic COT read, on us. Not a trial — it never expires.

  • The Classic COT board — net positions & COT Index across all 47 markets, updated every Friday
  • COT Classic + FX Crosses — our free TradingView indicator
  • The full Field Manual — every panel documented, free to browse
Start free

No card required

Launch pricing
Vault
$44.95$34.95/month

Everything. The whole vault, one price.

  • All 30+ panels — the Beginner boards through the Advanced engines
  • The backtested Edge Lab — 20 years of proof, losers graded F next to the winners
  • A plain-English AI read on every panel, refreshed with every report
  • The complete TradingView suite with alerts — plus every future indicator, included
  • The full 30-lesson COT Academy, capstones included
Open the Vault

Launch price — locked in for as long as you stay subscribed

Have a launch code? Enter it at checkout — it locks the Vault in at $29.95/mo for as long as you stay subscribed.

Most asked questions

Straight answers

What is the COT report?
Every week the CFTC — a US government agency — publishes the Commitments of Traders report: exactly how the market's largest players are positioned in every major futures market. It splits them into commercials (the hedgers — producers and processors using futures for business), large speculators (funds trading for profit) and small traders. Positions are collected Tuesday and published Friday. It's public, it's free, and it's one of the only places the biggest money is legally required to show its hand.
What's the COT Index I keep seeing?
A 0–100 score that answers "is this positioning extreme, or normal?" It places today's net position inside its 3-year range: 100 means the most net-long that group has been in three years, 0 the most net-short. It turns "commercials are short 214,000 contracts" — meaningless on its own — into "commercials are more stretched than they've been in three years," which is a read you can act on.
Who are the commercials — and why watch them?
Commercials are the businesses that live inside their market — the miner hedging gold, the airline hedging fuel. They're usually positioned against the trend (that's what hedging is), and they're historically the group most worth watching when their positioning hits an extreme. When the people who know a market best are as stretched as they've been in years, that's context no chart gives you.
COT data is free from the CFTC. Why pay anyone?
It is free, and we'd rather tell you that than have you find out later. The raw report is a wall of numbers with no history, no ranking and no explanation. What you're paying for is the read: 30+ panels that rank, score and explain all 47 markets, a backtest of every signal since 2006, indicators on your own charts, and a curriculum that teaches you what it all means. The data was never the edge — the reading of it is.
Does the Free plan expire?
No. It's free forever — no card, no trial clock, no downgrade date. The Classic COT board, the free TradingView indicator, and the full Field Manual stay open for as long as you want them.
What exactly is in the Vault plan?
Everything. There's one paid tier and nothing gated inside it: all 30+ panels including the Advanced engines, the backtested Edge Lab, AI reads on every panel, the complete TradingView indicator suite with alerts (plus every indicator we build next), and the full 30-lesson Academy. When we add new panels and indicators — and we will — your price doesn't change.
When does the data update?
The CFTC publishes every Friday around 3:30pm ET (data as of the prior Tuesday). COTVault refreshes every board and rewrites every AI read the same day. COT is weekly context by design — it tells you which way the floor tilts, and your own chart tells you when to step.
Can I cancel? What happens to the launch price?
Cancel anytime, yourself, from the billing page — no email, no phone call. The launch price is locked for life: as long as you stay subscribed, your rate never goes up, even as the list price does. Early members keep the best price we'll ever offer.
I'm brand new to COT. Where do I start?
Start free: open the Classic board, then read the first entries of the Field Manual — it walks every panel in plain English. When you upgrade, Academy Lesson 1 starts from "what is a futures contract" and builds to the advanced engines. The whole platform was designed to teach you the craft, not just show you numbers.
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Start reading the report tonight

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Start free — no card Browse the Field Manual

A web app, best experienced on a desktop browser. It works on mobile too, though not every panel is fully mobile-optimized yet — native apps are on the roadmap.