Forex COT Report: Weekly Net Spec Positioning
Net long / short positioning of large speculators across the 8 major currency futures, sourced from the U.S. CFTC Commitments of Traders report. The same dataset that institutional desks reference. Updated weekly.
CFTC Commitments of Traders report as of Nov 3, 2026
COT report by currency
Gold, oil, equity-index, Treasury and crypto futures are on the COT reports hub (21 markets).
The CFTC requires every reportable holder of a U.S. futures contract to disclose their open position weekly. The data is aggregated by trader category and published every Friday. AlphaScala pulls the latest report from the CFTC's public Open Data API, stores the weekly snapshot, and renders net positioning per currency.
net_specs = noncomm_long - noncomm_short net_spec_change = Δnoncomm_long - Δnoncomm_short (vs prior report) % of OI long = noncomm_long / open_interest
Three trader categories are tracked: non-commercial (the large speculators we headline), commercial (traders hedging real currency exposure), and non-reportable (small traders, retail-equivalent). The contrast between commercials and large specs is itself a useful read — they are usually on opposite sides of every position.
EUR latest report (illustrative): non-commercial long 217,091 contracts vs short 181,379. Net specs = +35,712 — large specs are modestly long the euro. Week-over-week, longs trimmed 316 and shorts grew 5,296 — the net stance is becoming less bullish even though it remains positive.
Reading it: a net position that is large relative to its own history and has started to reverse week over week is what traders call crowded positioning. It describes positioning, not where price goes next, so read it alongside price structure.
What is the COT report?
The Commitments of Traders (COT) report is a weekly disclosure published by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). It breaks down open positions in regulated futures markets by trader category: non-commercial (large speculators, such as hedge funds, CTAs and other money managers), commercial (traders hedging real exposure), and non-reportable (positions below the CFTC reporting levels, usually small traders).
Why does forex COT data matter if forex is mostly traded OTC?
Currency futures on the CME and ICE are liquid and used by institutional traders to express macro views. Speculator positioning in EUR or GBP futures is one of the few public, regulator-sourced reads on how that group is positioned in a currency. Traders watch it for crowded positioning, when a group holds an unusually large net long or short relative to its own history.
How fresh is the data?
The CFTC collects Tuesday positions and generally publishes them the following Friday at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time, so there is a built-in 3-day lag. AlphaScala checks for the new report on Friday evening and again on Monday (UTC) for holiday-delayed releases, and the date above the table shows which week you are looking at.
How do I read net spec positioning?
Net spec = large speculators' long contracts minus short contracts. Positive means large speculators are net long the currency, negative means net short. The week-over-week change shows whether they are adding to or cutting that position. Each currency's own COT page puts the current reading in context with a 3-year COT index and its history since 2006. Positioning describes what traders hold; it is not a forecast.
Where is USD?
There is no single "USD futures" contract on this list. The closest proxy is ICE's U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) future, which has its own COT page under COT reports. USD positioning can also be read as the inverse of the basket: when EUR, GBP and AUD specs are all heavily long, that is implicitly a short-USD position.
Guides
- Gold COT report explained – how to read managed money and what gold did after the most extreme readings