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Positioning

⚖️

The Pro Positioning module reads the CFTC's weekly Commitments-of-Traders (COT) report directly onto the chart — net positions by trader class, a normalized index, and a smoothed stochastic — for the futures market behind your symbol.

Where to find it

Open Dashboard → Charts, select Indicators, and search for a tool by name or choose the Positioning group.

Indicators

COT Net Positions

Plots three lines — funds, commercials, and small traders — each the class's long contracts minus its short contracts, straight from the CFTC's legacy futures-only report.

COT Index

Shows the selected trader class on a 0–100 scale relative to its recent positioning. Near 100 means the group is close to its most net-long area in the selected history; near 0 means it is close to its most net-short area.

COT Stochastic

Adds two faster lines around the COT Index so turns away from positioning extremes are easier to see. Use the crossings as a review cue, not a timing signal on their own.

Which markets are covered

Positioning reads whichever CFTC-reported futures market corresponds to your chart's symbol — equity indices (ES, NQ, YM, RTY, VIX), metals (gold, silver, copper, platinum, palladium), energy (crude, natural gas), rates (Treasury futures), currencies, crypto (Bitcoin, Ether) and grains, including common ETF proxies (GLD → gold, SPY → the E-mini S&P, and so on).

Individual equities have no futures market and no COT report — Positioning shows an explicit empty state rather than guessing.

A practical workflow

  1. Add COT Net Positions and watch how the fund and commercial lines diverge — a wide, growing gap is a positioning extreme building.
  2. Check the COT Index for the chosen trader class: a reading near 100 or 0 confirms the extreme is unusual versus the last few years, not just the last few weeks.
  3. Use COT Stochastic the way you'd use a price stochastic — a cross back out of an extreme zone often lines up with positioning starting to unwind.
  4. Weigh this alongside price structure and your other tools — positioning describes who is holding what, not when they'll act on it.

Reading the result

  • The data updates weekly, on the CFTC's own Friday release schedule covering the prior Tuesday's positions — it will never be more current than that.
  • Crowded positioning (a COT Index near an extreme) can persist for a long time before it resolves. Treat it as context for a move's fragility, not a timing trigger on its own.
  • Commercial hedgers trade to manage their own physical exposure, not necessarily in the direction the market will go — "smart money" is a common shorthand, not a guarantee.
⚠️

Positioning is research and education only — not a trade signal, not advice. An extreme reading is a fact about who holds what; it is not a prediction of what happens next.

Plan access

All three Positioning indicators are included with Pro.

See Indicators for the category map and Charts Workspace for indicator settings and layouts.