CFTC Managed Money Monitor

How to read this

Who managed money is

Registered commodity trading advisors, commodity pool operators and hedge funds. They trade to make money on price direction, not to hedge a crop or a feed bill. That makes their net position the cleanest read on speculative sentiment in a market.

Net position is long contracts minus short contracts. Spread positions are excluded, which is why the long and short figures on each card won’t always reconcile against total open interest.

What the range bar shows

The bar on each card plots the current net position inside its own 52-week high and low. A marker pinned to the right edge means funds are the most long they have been all year; hard left means the opposite.

Position extremes matter because they measure how much fuel is left. A market where funds are already maxed out has fewer buyers left to add, and a lot of length that can be forced out in a hurry.

What it isn’t

This is a sentiment gauge, not a timing signal. Positioning can sit at an extreme for months while price keeps trending, and funds are frequently right. Crowded positioning tells you the risk of a sharp reversal has gone up, not that one is coming.

The data is also stale by design. Positions are captured Tuesday at the close and published Friday afternoon, so three days of trading have already happened by the time you see it.