Reading the Commitments of Traders figures

Every week the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) publishes the positions held in US futures markets as at the Tuesday before. Its detailed report splits traders into producers and merchants, swap dealers, managed money and other reportable traders.

Managed money means hedge funds, commodity trading advisers and similar funds. They trade to make a return, not to hedge a business, so changes in their net position are the closest public measure of speculative money moving into or out of a commodity.

The net position is contracts betting on higher prices minus contracts betting on lower prices. This site values contracts at the World Bank's latest monthly average price, so dollar figures are estimates; the number of contracts is as reported. The report covers US exchanges only, so ICE Brent crude and London Metal Exchange contracts are not included.

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