Commitments of Traders Report
Producer/Merchant/Processor/User
A “producer/merchant/processor/user” is an entity that predominantly engages in the production,
processing, packing or handling of a physical commodity and uses the futures markets to manage or
hedge risks associated with those activities.
Swap Dealer A “swap dealer” is an entity that deals primarily in swaps for a commodity and uses the
futures markets to manage or hedge the risk associated with those swaps transactions. The swap
dealer’s counterparties may be speculative traders, like hedge funds, or traditional commercial clients
that are managing risk arising from their dealings in the physical commodity.
Money Manager A “money manager,” for the purpose of this report, is a registered commodity
trading advisor (CTA); a registered commodity pool operator (CPO); or an unregistered fund
identified by CFTC.These traders are engaged in managing and conducting organized futures
trading on behalf of clients.
Other Reportables
Every other reportable trader that is not placed into one of the other three categories is placed into
the “other reportables” category.
Spreading
The Disaggregated COT sets out open interest by long, short, and spreading for the three categories of
traders—“swap dealers,” “managed money,” and “other reportable.” For the
“producer/merchant/processor/user” category, open interest is reported only by long or short
positions. “Spreading” is a computed amount equal to offsetting long and short positions held by a
trader. The computed amount of spreading is calculated as the amount of offsetting futures in
different calendar months or offsetting futures and options in the same or different calendar months.
Any residual long or short position is reported in the long or short column. Inter-market spreads are
not considered.
Numbers of Traders
The sum of the numbers of traders in each separate category typically exceeds the total number of
reportable traders. This results from the fact that, in the “swap dealers,” “managed money,” and
“other reportables” categories, “spreading” can be a partial activity, so the same trader can fall into
either the outright “long” or “short” trader count, as well as into the “spreading” count.
Additionally, a reportable “producer/merchant/processor/user” may be in both the long and the short
position columns. In order to preserve the confidentiality of traders, for any given commodity
where a specific category has fewer than four active traders, the size of the relevant positions will be
provided but the trader count will be suppressed (specifically, a “·” will appear for trader counts of
fewer than four traders).
Source:
http://www.cftc.gov/ucm/groups/public/@commitmentsoftraders/documents/file/disaggregatedcotexplanatorynot.pdf
