CoT charts are based on CoT reports which are published by the CFTC each Friday on 19:30 GMT. Each CoT report includes a breakdown of each Tuesday's open interest for markets in which 20 or more traders hold positions equal to or above the reporting levels established by the CFTC. There are several reasons why CoT charts provide valuable information about changes in the position commitments of traders:
As the U.S. dollar is secondary currency of all futures contracts, the CoT chart for EUR represents statistics for EUR/USD. In a similar manner, the CoT chart for CHF represents statistics for CHF/USD. The full list of the currency pairs includes: EUR, GBP, JPY, CHF, AUD, and NZD.
Notations:
Noncommercial traders are speculators, such as individual traders, hedge funds and large institutions, which operate on the futures market and meet the reporting requirements.
Long Noncommercial Positioning represents the long open interest of noncommercial traders.
Short Noncommercial Positioning represents the short open interest of noncommercial traders.
Net Noncommercial Positioning is the difference between the short and long open interest of noncommercial traders. Net positioning offers a particularly good measure of CoT data and tends to follow the price action.
Weekly Close Price represents the price action of the underlying currency pair. Each bar of the chart is each Tuesday's closing price.