Source: CFTC Commitments of Traders (public domain). Free, no account required. For informational and educational purposes only, not financial advice.
The CFTC's weekly Commitments of Traders report, read straight from the CFTC. It shows futures positions as of Tuesday and is normally published Friday at 3:30pm ET. This page updates on its own when a new report lands.
Large specs are the CFTC's non-commercial traders: funds and big speculators trading for profit. Hedgers (commercials) are producers and users of the underlying who offset business risk, so they often sit on the other side. Small traders are positions too small to report individually, the closest thing the COT has to the retail crowd.
It compares this week's position, sized against open interest, with every weekly report from the last 3 years. Crowded long means large speculators are more long than in 90% of those weeks; crowded short, more short than in 90%. Normal is everything in between.
No. Crowded markets can stay crowded for months. The rank tells you how stretched a market is against its own history, which is useful context for risk, not a trade call.
Long % = longs ÷ (longs + shorts). The score adds +1 when speculators are net long (−1 net short) and +1 when the long share rose on the week (−1 when it fell), so it runs from −2 to +2.
Large specs uses non-commercial positions from the Legacy report for every market. Fund managers swaps in managed money for metals and energy, and leveraged funds (hedge funds and CTAs) for currencies, indices, bonds and Bitcoin, from the CFTC's more detailed reports.