COT IndexTHE HIDDEN INTELLIGENCE IN FUTURES MARKETS
What if you could see what the smartest players in the futures markets are doing before the crowd catches on? While retail traders chase momentum indicators and moving averages, obsess over Japanese candlestick patterns, and debate whether the RSI should be set to fourteen or twenty-one periods, institutional players leave footprints in the sand through their mandatory reporting to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. These footprints, published weekly in the Commitment of Traders reports, have been hiding in plain sight for decades, available to anyone with an internet connection, yet remarkably few traders understand how to interpret them correctly. The COT Index indicator transforms this raw institutional positioning data into actionable trading signals, bringing Wall Street intelligence to your trading screen without requiring expensive Bloomberg terminals or insider connections.
The uncomfortable truth is this: Most retail traders operate in a binary world. Long or short. Buy or sell. They apply technical analysis to individual positions, constrained by limited capital that forces them to concentrate risk in single directional bets. Meanwhile, institutional traders operate in an entirely different dimension. They manage portfolios dynamically weighted across multiple markets, adjusting exposure based on evolving market conditions, correlation shifts, and risk assessments that retail traders never see. A hedge fund might be simultaneously long gold, short oil, neutral on copper, and overweight agricultural commodities, with position sizes calibrated to volatility and portfolio Greeks. When they increase gold exposure from five percent to eight percent of portfolio allocation, this rebalancing decision reflects sophisticated analysis of opportunity cost, risk parity, and cross-market dynamics that no individual chart pattern can capture.
This portfolio reweighting activity, multiplied across hundreds of institutional participants, manifests in the aggregate positioning data published weekly by the CFTC. The Commitment of Traders report does not show individual trades or strategies. It shows the collective footprint of how actual commercial hedgers and large speculators have allocated their capital across different markets. When mining companies collectively increase forward gold sales to hedge thirty percent more production than last quarter, they are not reacting to a moving average crossover. They are making strategic allocation decisions based on production forecasts, cost structures, and price expectations derived from operational realities invisible to outside observers. This is portfolio management in action, revealed through positioning data rather than price charts.
If you want to understand how institutional capital actually flows, how sophisticated traders genuinely position themselves across market cycles, the COT report provides a rare window into that hidden world. But understand what you are getting into. This is not a tool for scalpers seeking confirmation of the next five-minute move. This is not an oscillator that flashes oversold at market bottoms with convenient precision. COT analysis operates on a timescale measured in weeks and months, revealing positioning shifts that precede major market turns but offer no precision timing. The data arrives three days stale, published only once per week, capturing strategic positioning rather than tactical entries.
If you need instant gratification, if you trade intraday moves, if you demand mechanical signals with ninety percent accuracy, close this document now. COT analysis rewards patience, position sizing discipline, and tolerance for being early. It punishes impatience, overleveraging, and the expectation that any single indicator can substitute for market understanding.
The premise is deceptively simple. Every Tuesday, large traders in futures markets must report their positions to the CFTC. By Friday afternoon, this data becomes public. Academic research spanning three decades has consistently shown that not all market participants are created equal. Some traders consistently profit while others consistently lose. Some anticipate major turning points while others chase trends into exhaustion. Bessembinder and Chan (1992) demonstrated in their seminal study that commercial hedgers, those with actual exposure to the underlying commodity or financial instrument, possess superior forecasting ability compared to speculators. Their research, published in the Journal of Finance, found statistically significant predictive power in commercial positioning, particularly at extreme levels. This finding challenged the efficient market hypothesis and opened the door to a new approach to market analysis based on positioning rather than price alone.
Think about what this means. Every week, the government publishes a report showing you exactly how the most informed market participants are positioned. Not their opinions. Not their predictions. Their actual money at risk. When agricultural producers collectively hold their largest short hedge in five years, they are not making idle speculation. They are locking in prices for crops they will harvest, informed by private knowledge of weather conditions, soil quality, inventory levels, and demand expectations invisible to outside observers. When energy companies aggressively hedge forward production at current prices, they reveal information about expected supply that no analyst report can capture. This is not technical analysis based on past prices. This is not fundamental analysis based on publicly available data. This is behavioral analysis based on how the smartest money is actually positioned, how institutions allocate capital across portfolios, and how those allocation decisions shift as market conditions evolve.
WHY SOME TRADERS KNOW MORE THAN OTHERS
Building on this foundation, Sanders, Boris and Manfredo (2004) conducted extensive research examining the behaviour patterns of different trader categories. Their work, which analyzed over a decade of COT data across multiple commodity markets, revealed a fascinating dynamic that challenges much of what retail traders are taught. Commercial hedgers consistently positioned themselves against market extremes, buying when speculators were most bearish and selling when speculators reached peak bullishness. The contrarian positioning of commercials was not random noise but rather reflected their superior information about supply and demand fundamentals. Meanwhile, large speculators, primarily hedge funds and commodity trading advisors, exhibited strong trend-following behaviour that often amplified market moves beyond fundamental values. Small traders, the retail participants, consistently entered positions late in trends, frequently near turning points, making them reliable contrary indicators.
Wang (2003) extended this research by demonstrating that the predictive power of commercial positioning varies significantly across different commodity sectors. His analysis of agricultural commodities showed particularly strong forecasting ability, with commercial net positions explaining up to fifteen percent of return variance in subsequent weeks. This finding suggests that the informational advantages of hedgers are most pronounced in markets where physical supply and demand fundamentals dominate, as opposed to purely financial markets where information asymmetries are smaller. When a corn farmer hedges six months of expected harvest, that decision incorporates private observations about rainfall patterns, crop health, pest pressure, and local storage capacity that no distant analyst can match. When an oil refinery hedges crude oil purchases and gasoline sales simultaneously, the spread relationships reveal expectations about refining margins that reflect operational realities invisible in public data.
The theoretical mechanism underlying these empirical patterns relates to information asymmetry and different participant motivations. Commercial hedgers engage in futures markets not for speculative profit but to manage business risks. An agricultural producer selling forward six months of expected harvest is not making a bet on price direction but rather locking in revenue to facilitate financial planning and ensure business viability. However, this hedging activity necessarily incorporates private information about expected supply, inventory levels, weather conditions, and demand trends that the hedger observes through their commercial operations (Irwin and Sanders, 2012). When aggregated across many participants, this private information manifests in collective positioning.
Consider a gold mining company deciding how much forward production to hedge. Management must estimate ore grades, recovery rates, production costs, equipment reliability, labor availability, and dozens of other operational variables that determine whether locking in prices at current levels makes business sense. If the industry collectively hedges more aggressively than usual, it suggests either exceptional production expectations or concern about sustaining current price levels or combination of both. Either way, this positioning reveals information unavailable to speculators analyzing price charts and economic data. The hedger sees the physical reality behind the financial abstraction.
Large speculators operate under entirely different incentives and constraints. Commodity Trading Advisors managing billions in assets typically employ systematic, trend-following strategies that respond to price momentum rather than fundamental supply and demand. When crude oil rallies from sixty dollars to seventy dollars per barrel, these systems generate buy signals. As the rally continues to eighty dollars, position sizes increase. The strategy works brilliantly during sustained trends but becomes a liability at reversals. By the time oil reaches ninety dollars, trend-following funds are maximally long, having accumulated positions progressively throughout the rally. At this point, they represent not smart money anticipating further gains but rather crowded money vulnerable to reversal. Sanders, Boris and Manfredo (2004) documented this pattern across multiple energy markets, showing that extreme speculator positioning typically marked late-stage trend exhaustion rather than early-stage trend development.
Small traders, the retail participants who fall below reporting thresholds, display the weakest forecasting ability. Wang (2003) found that small trader positioning exhibited negative correlation with subsequent returns, meaning their aggregate positioning served as a reliable contrary indicator. The explanation combines several factors. Retail traders often lack the capital reserves to weather normal market volatility, leading to premature exits from positions that would eventually prove profitable. They tend to receive information through slower channels, entering trends after mainstream media coverage when institutional participants are preparing to exit. Perhaps most importantly, they trade with emotion, buying into euphoria and selling into panic at precisely the wrong times.
At major turning points, the three groups often position opposite each other with commercials extremely bearish, large speculators extremely bullish, and small traders piling into longs at the last moment. These high-divergence environments frequently precede increased volatility and trend reversals. The insiders with business exposure quietly exit as the momentum traders hit maximum capacity and retail enthusiasm peaks. Within weeks, the reversal begins, and positions unwind in the opposite sequence.
FROM RAW DATA TO ACTIONABLE SIGNALS
The COT Index indicator operationalizes these academic findings into a practical trading tool accessible through TradingView. At its core, the indicator normalizes net positioning data onto a zero to one hundred scale, creating what we call the COT Index. This normalization is critical because absolute position sizes vary dramatically across different futures contracts and over time. A commercial trader holding fifty thousand contracts net long in crude oil might be extremely bullish by historical standards, or it might be quite neutral depending on the context of total market size and historical ranges. Raw position numbers mean nothing without context. The COT Index solves this problem by calculating where current positioning stands relative to its range over a specified lookback period, typically two hundred fifty-two weeks or approximately five years of weekly data.
The mathematical transformation follows the methodology originally popularized by legendary trader Larry Williams, though the underlying concept appears in statistical normalization techniques across many fields. For any given trader category, we calculate the highest and lowest net position values over the lookback period, establishing the historical range for that specific market and trader group. Current positioning is then expressed as a percentage of this range, where zero represents the most bearish positioning ever seen in the lookback window and one hundred represents the most bullish extreme. A reading of fifty indicates positioning exactly in the middle of the historical range, suggesting neither extreme optimism nor pessimism relative to recent history (Williams and Noseworthy, 2009).
This index-based approach allows for meaningful comparison across different markets and time periods, overcoming the scaling problems inherent in analyzing raw position data. A commercial index reading of eighty-five in gold carries the same interpretive meaning as an eighty-five reading in wheat or crude oil, even though the absolute position sizes differ by orders of magnitude. This standardization enables systematic analysis across entire futures portfolios rather than requiring market-specific expertise for each contract.
The lookback period selection involves a fundamental tradeoff between responsiveness and stability. Shorter lookback periods, perhaps one hundred twenty-six weeks or approximately two and a half years, make the index more sensitive to recent positioning changes. However, it also increases noise and produces more false signals. Longer lookback periods, perhaps five hundred weeks or approximately ten years, create smoother readings that filter short-term noise but become slower to recognize regime changes. The indicator settings allow users to adjust this parameter based on their trading timeframe, risk tolerance, and market characteristics.
UNDERSTANDING CFTC DATA STRUCTURES
The indicator supports both Legacy and Disaggregated COT report formats, reflecting the evolution of CFTC reporting standards over decades of market development. Legacy reports categorize market participants into three broad groups: commercial traders (hedgers with underlying business exposure), non-commercial traders (large speculators seeking profit without commercial interest), and non-reportable traders (small speculators below reporting thresholds). Each category brings distinct motivations and information advantages to the market (CFTC, 2020).
The Disaggregated reports, introduced in September 2009 for physical commodity markets, provide finer granularity by splitting participants into five categories (CFTC, 2009). Producer and merchant positions capture those actually producing, processing, or merchandising the physical commodity. Swap dealers represent financial intermediaries facilitating derivative transactions for clients. Managed money includes commodity trading advisors and hedge funds executing systematic or discretionary strategies. Other reportables encompasses diverse participants not fitting the main categories. Small traders remain as the fifth group, representing retail participation.
This enhanced categorization reveals nuances invisible in Legacy reports, particularly distinguishing between different types of institutional capital and their distinct behavioural patterns. The indicator automatically detects which report type is appropriate for each futures contract and adjusts the display accordingly.
Importantly, Disaggregated reports exist only for physical commodity futures. Agricultural commodities like corn, wheat, and soybeans have Disaggregated reports because clear producer, merchant, and swap dealer categories exist. Energy commodities like crude oil and natural gas similarly have well-defined commercial hedger categories. Metals including gold, silver, and copper also receive Disaggregated treatment (CFTC, 2009). However, financial futures such as equity index futures, Treasury bond futures, and currency futures remain available only in Legacy format. The CFTC has indicated no plans to extend Disaggregated reporting to financial futures due to different market structures and participant categories in these instruments (CFTC, 2020).
THE BEHAVIORAL FOUNDATION
Understanding which trader perspective to follow requires appreciation of their distinct trading styles, success rates, and psychological profiles. Commercial hedgers exhibit anticyclical behaviour rooted in their fundamental knowledge and business imperatives. When agricultural producers hedge forward sales during harvest season, they are not speculating on price direction but rather locking in revenue for crops they will harvest. Their business requires converting volatile commodity exposure into predictable cash flows to facilitate planning and ensure survival through difficult periods. Yet their aggregate positioning reveals valuable information because these hedging decisions incorporate private information about supply conditions, inventory levels, weather observations, and demand expectations that hedgers observe through their commercial operations (Bessembinder and Chan, 1992).
Consider a practical example from energy markets. Major oil companies continuously hedge portions of forward production based on price levels, operational costs, and financial planning needs. When crude oil trades at ninety dollars per barrel, they might aggressively hedge the next twelve months of production, locking in prices that provide comfortable profit margins above their extraction costs. This hedging appears as short positioning in COT reports. If oil rallies further to one hundred dollars, they hedge even more aggressively, viewing these prices as exceptional opportunities to secure revenue. Their short positioning grows increasingly extreme. To an outside observer watching only price charts, the rally suggests bullishness. But the commercial positioning reveals that the actual producers of oil find these prices attractive enough to lock in years of sales, suggesting skepticism about sustaining even higher levels. When the eventual reversal occurs and oil declines back to eighty dollars, the commercials who hedged at ninety and one hundred dollars profit while speculators who chased the rally suffer losses.
Large speculators or managed money traders operate under entirely different incentives and constraints. Their systematic, momentum-driven strategies mean they amplify existing trends rather than anticipate reversals. Trend-following systems, the most common approach among large speculators, by definition require confirmation of trend through price momentum before entering positions (Sanders, Boris and Manfredo, 2004). When crude oil rallies from sixty dollars to eighty dollars per barrel over several months, trend-following algorithms generate buy signals based on moving average crossovers, breakouts, and other momentum indicators. As the rally continues, position sizes increase according to the systematic rules.
However, this approach becomes a liability at turning points. By the time oil reaches ninety dollars after a sustained rally, trend-following funds are maximally long, having accumulated positions progressively throughout the move. At this point, their positioning does not predict continued strength. Rather, it often marks late-stage trend exhaustion. The psychological and mechanical explanation is straightforward. Trend followers by definition chase price momentum, entering positions after trends establish rather than anticipating them. Eventually, they become fully invested just as the trend nears completion, leaving no incremental buying power to sustain the rally. When the first signs of reversal appear, systematic stops trigger, creating a cascade of selling that accelerates the downturn.
Small traders consistently display the weakest track record across academic studies. Wang (2003) found that small trader positioning exhibited negative correlation with subsequent returns in his analysis across multiple commodity markets. This result means that whatever small traders collectively do, the opposite typically proves profitable. The explanation for small trader underperformance combines several factors documented in behavioral finance literature. Retail traders often lack the capital reserves to weather normal market volatility, leading to premature exits from positions that would eventually prove profitable. They tend to receive information through slower channels, learning about commodity trends through mainstream media coverage that arrives after institutional participants have already positioned. Perhaps most importantly, retail traders are more susceptible to emotional decision-making, buying into euphoria and selling into panic at precisely the wrong times (Tharp, 2008).
SETTINGS, THRESHOLDS, AND SIGNAL GENERATION
The practical implementation of the COT Index requires understanding several key features and settings that users can adjust to match their trading style, timeframe, and risk tolerance. The lookback period determines the time window for calculating historical ranges. The default setting of two hundred fifty-two bars represents approximately one year on daily charts or five years on weekly charts, balancing responsiveness with stability. Conservative traders seeking only the most extreme, highest-probability signals might extend the lookback to five hundred bars or more. Aggressive traders seeking earlier entry and willing to accept more false positives might reduce it to one hundred twenty-six bars or even less for shorter-term applications.
The bullish and bearish thresholds define signal generation levels. Default settings of eighty and twenty respectively reflect academic research suggesting meaningful information content at these extremes. Readings above eighty indicate positioning in the top quintile of the historical range, representing genuine extremes rather than temporary fluctuations. Conversely, readings below twenty occupy the bottom quintile, indicating unusually bearish positioning (Briese, 2008).
However, traders must recognize that appropriate thresholds vary by market, trader category, and personal risk tolerance. Some futures markets exhibit wider positioning swings than others due to seasonal patterns, volatility characteristics, or participant behavior. Conservative traders seeking high-probability setups with fewer signals might raise thresholds to eighty-five and fifteen. Aggressive traders willing to accept more false positives for earlier entry could lower them to seventy-five and twenty-five.
The key is maintaining meaningful differentiation between bullish, neutral, and bearish zones. The default settings of eighty and twenty create a clear three-zone structure. Readings from zero to twenty represent bearish territory where the selected trader group holds unusually bearish positions. Readings from twenty to eighty represent neutral territory where positioning falls within normal historical ranges. Readings from eighty to one hundred represent bullish territory where the selected trader group holds unusually bullish positions.
The trading perspective selection determines which participant group the indicator follows, fundamentally shaping interpretation and signal meaning. For counter-trend traders seeking reversal opportunities, monitoring commercial positioning makes intuitive sense based on the academic research discussed earlier. When commercials reach extreme bearish readings below twenty, indicating unprecedented short positioning relative to recent history, they are effectively betting against the crowd. Given their informational advantages demonstrated by Bessembinder and Chan (1992), this contrarian stance often precedes major bottoms.
Trend followers might instead monitor large speculator positioning, but with inverted logic compared to commercials. When managed money reaches extreme bullish readings above eighty, the trend may be exhausting rather than accelerating. This seeming paradox reflects their late-cycle participation documented by Sanders, Boris and Manfredo (2004). Sophisticated traders thus use speculator extremes as fade signals, entering positions opposite to speculator consensus.
Small trader monitoring serves primarily as a contrary indicator for all trading styles. Extreme small trader bullishness above seventy-five or eighty typically warns of retail FOMO at market tops. Extreme small trader bearishness below twenty or twenty-five often marks capitulation bottoms where the last weak hands have sold.
VISUALIZATION AND USER INTERFACE
The visual design incorporates multiple elements working together to facilitate decision-making and maintain situational awareness during active trading. The primary COT Index line plots in bold with adjustable line width, defaulting to two pixels for clear visibility against busy price charts. An optional glow effect, controlled by a simple toggle, adds additional visual prominence through multiple plot layers with progressively increasing transparency and width.
A twenty-one period exponential moving average overlays the index line, providing trend context for positioning changes. When the index crosses above its moving average, it signals accelerating bullish sentiment among the selected trader group regardless of whether absolute positioning is extreme. Conversely, when the index crosses below its moving average, it signals deteriorating sentiment and potentially the beginning of a reversal in positioning trends.
The EMA provides a dynamic reference line for assessing positioning momentum. When the index trades far above its EMA, positioning is not only extreme in absolute terms but also building with momentum. When the index trades far below its EMA, positioning is contracting or reversing, which may indicate weakening conviction even if absolute levels remain elevated.
The data table positioned at the top right of the chart displays eleven metrics for each trader category, transforming the indicator from a simple index calculation into an analytical dashboard providing multidimensional market intelligence. Beyond the COT Index itself, users can monitor positioning extremity, which measures how unusual current levels are compared to historical norms using statistical techniques. The extremity metric clarifies whether a reading represents the ninety-fifth or ninety-ninth percentile, with values above two standard deviations indicating genuinely exceptional positioning.
Market power quantifies each group's influence on total open interest. This metric expresses each trader category's net position as a percentage of total market open interest. A commercial entity holding forty percent of total open interest commands significantly more influence than one holding five percent, making their positioning signals more meaningful.
Momentum and rate of change metrics reveal whether positions are building or contracting, providing early warning of potential regime shifts. Position velocity measures the rate of change in positioning changes, effectively a second derivative providing even earlier insight into inflection points.
Sentiment divergence highlights disagreements between commercial and speculative positioning. This metric calculates the absolute difference between normalized commercial and large speculator index values. Wang (2003) found that these high-divergence environments frequently preceded increased volatility and reversals.
The table also displays concentration metrics when available, showing how positioning is distributed among the largest handful of traders in each category. High concentration indicates a few dominant players controlling most of the positioning, while low concentration suggests broad-based participation across many traders.
THE ALERT SYSTEM AND MONITORING
The alert system, comprising five distinct alert conditions, enables systematic monitoring of dozens of futures markets without constant screen watching. The bullish and bearish COT signal alerts trigger when the index crosses user-defined thresholds, indicating the selected trader group has reached extreme positioning worthy of attention. These alerts fire in real-time as new weekly COT data publishes, typically Friday afternoon following the Tuesday measurement date.
Extreme positioning alerts fire at ninety and ten index levels, representing the top and bottom ten percent of the historical range, warning of particularly stretched readings that historically precede reversals with high probability. When commercials reach a COT Index reading below ten, they are expressing their most bearish stance in the entire lookback period.
The data staleness alert notifies users when COT reports have not updated for more than ten days, preventing reliance on outdated information for trading decisions. Government shutdowns or federal holidays can interrupt the normal Friday publication schedule. Using stale signals while believing them current creates dangerous false confidence.
The indicator's watermark information display positioned in the bottom right corner provides essential context at a glance. This persistent display shows the symbol and timeframe, the COT report date timestamp, days since last update, and the current signal state. A trader analyzing a potential short entry in crude oil can glance at the watermark to instantly confirm positioning context without interrupting analysis flow.
LIMITATIONS AND REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS
Practical application requires understanding both the indicator's considerable strengths and inherent limitations. COT data inherently lags price action by three days, as Tuesday positions are not published until Friday afternoon. This delay means the indicator cannot catch rapid intraday reversals or respond to surprise news events. Traders using the COT Index for timing entries must accept this latency and focus on swing trading and position trading timeframes where three-day lags matter less than in day trading or scalping.
The weekly publication schedule similarly makes the indicator unsuitable for short-term trading strategies requiring immediate feedback. The COT Index works best for traders operating on weekly or longer timeframes, where positioning shifts measured in weeks and months align with trading horizon.
Extreme COT readings can persist far longer than typical technical indicators suggest, testing the patience and capital reserves of traders attempting to fade them. When crude oil enters a sustained bull market driven by genuine supply disruptions, commercial hedgers may maintain bearish positioning for many months as prices grind higher. A commercial COT Index reading of fifteen indicating extreme bearishness might persist for three months while prices continue rallying before finally reversing. Traders without sufficient capital and risk tolerance to weather such drawdowns will exit prematurely, precisely when the signal is about to work (Irwin and Sanders, 2012).
Position sizing discipline becomes paramount when implementing COT-based strategies. Rather than risking large percentages of capital on individual signals, successful COT traders typically allocate modest position sizes across multiple signals, allowing some to take time to mature while others work more quickly.
The indicator also cannot overcome fundamental regime changes that alter the structural drivers of markets. If gold enters a true secular bull market driven by monetary debasement, commercial hedgers may remain persistently bearish as mining companies sell forward years of production at what they perceive as favorable prices. Their positioning indicates valuation concerns from a production cost perspective, but cannot stop prices from rising if investment demand overwhelms physical supply-demand balance.
Similarly, structural changes in market participation can alter the meaning of positioning extremes. The growth of commodity index investing in the two thousands brought massive passive long-only capital into futures markets, fundamentally changing typical positioning ranges. Traders relying on COT signals without recognizing this regime change would have generated numerous false bearish signals during the commodity supercycle from 2003 to 2008.
The research foundation supporting COT analysis derives primarily from commodity markets where the commercial hedger information advantage is most pronounced. Studies specifically examining financial futures like equity indices and bonds show weaker but still present effects. Traders should calibrate expectations accordingly, recognizing that COT analysis likely works better for crude oil, natural gas, corn, and wheat than for the S&P 500, Treasury bonds, or currency futures.
Another important limitation involves the reporting threshold structure. Not all market participants appear in COT data, only those holding positions above specified minimums. In markets dominated by a few large players, concentration metrics become critical for proper interpretation. A single large trader accounting for thirty percent of commercial positioning might skew the entire category if their individual circumstances are idiosyncratic rather than representative.
GOLD FUTURES DURING A HYPOTHETICAL MARKET CYCLE
Consider a practical example using gold futures during a hypothetical but realistic market scenario that illustrates how the COT Index indicator guides trading decisions through a complete market cycle. Suppose gold has rallied from fifteen hundred to nineteen hundred dollars per ounce over six months, driven by inflation concerns following aggressive monetary expansion, geopolitical uncertainty, and sustained buying by Asian central banks for reserve diversification.
Large speculators, operating primarily trend-following strategies, have accumulated increasingly bullish positions throughout this rally. Their COT Index has climbed progressively from forty-five to eighty-five. The table display shows that large speculators now hold net long positions representing thirty-two percent of total open interest, their highest in four years. Momentum indicators show positive readings, indicating positions are still building though at a decelerating rate. Position velocity has turned negative, suggesting the pace of position building is slowing.
Meanwhile, commercial hedgers have responded to the rally by aggressively selling forward production and inventory. Their COT Index has moved inversely to price, declining from fifty-five to twenty. This bearish commercial positioning represents mining companies locking in forward sales at prices they view as attractive relative to production costs. The table shows commercials now hold net short positions representing twenty-nine percent of total open interest, their most bearish stance in five years. Concentration metrics indicate this positioning is broadly distributed across many commercial entities, suggesting the bearish stance reflects collective industry view rather than idiosyncratic positioning by a single firm.
Small traders, attracted by mainstream financial media coverage of gold's impressive rally, have recently piled into long positions. Their COT Index has jumped from forty-five to seventy-eight as retail investors chase the trend. Television financial networks feature frequent segments on gold with bullish guests. Internet forums and social media show surging retail interest. This retail enthusiasm historically marks late-stage trend development rather than early opportunity.
The COT Index indicator, configured to monitor commercial positioning from a contrarian perspective, displays a clear bearish signal given the extreme commercial short positioning. The table displays multiple confirming metrics: positioning extremity shows commercials at the ninety-sixth percentile of bearishness, market power indicates they control twenty-nine percent of open interest, and sentiment divergence registers sixty-five, indicating massive disagreement between commercial hedgers and large speculators. This divergence, the highest in three years, places the market in the historically high-risk category for reversals.
The interpretation requires nuance and consideration of context beyond just COT data. Commercials are not necessarily predicting an imminent crash. Rather, they are hedging business operations at what they collectively view as favorable price levels. However, the data reveals they have sold unusually large quantities of forward production, suggesting either exceptional production expectations for the year ahead or concern about sustaining current price levels or combination of both. Combined with extreme speculator positioning indicating a crowded long trade, and small trader enthusiasm confirming retail FOMO, the confluence suggests elevated reversal risk even if the precise timing remains uncertain.
A prudent trader analyzing this situation might take several actions based on COT Index signals. Existing long positions could be tightened with closer stop losses. Profit-taking on a portion of long exposure could lock in gains while maintaining some participation. Some traders might initiate modest short positions as portfolio hedges, sizing them appropriately for the inherent uncertainty in timing reversals. Others might simply move to the sidelines, avoiding new long entries until positioning normalizes.
The key lesson from case study analysis is that COT signals provide probabilistic edges rather than deterministic predictions. They work over many observations by identifying higher-probability configurations, not by generating perfect calls on individual trades. A fifty-five percent win rate with proper risk management produces substantial profits over time, yet still means forty-five percent of signals will be premature or wrong. Traders must embrace this probabilistic reality rather than seeking the impossible goal of perfect accuracy.
INTEGRATION WITH TRADING SYSTEMS
Integration with existing trading systems represents a natural and powerful use case for COT analysis, adding a positioning dimension to price-based technical approaches or fundamental analytical frameworks. Few traders rely exclusively on a single indicator or methodology. Rather, they build systems that synthesize multiple information sources, with each component addressing different aspects of market behavior.
Trend followers might use COT extremes as regime filters, modifying position sizing or avoiding new trend entries when positioning reaches levels historically associated with reversals. Consider a classic trend-following system based on moving average crossovers and momentum breakouts. Integration of COT analysis adds nuance. When large speculator positioning exceeds ninety or commercial positioning falls below ten, the regime filter recognizes elevated reversal risk. The system might reduce position sizing by fifty percent for new signals during these high-risk periods (Kaufman, 2013).
Mean reversion traders might require COT signal confluence before fading extended moves. When crude oil becomes technically overbought and large speculators show extreme long positioning above eighty-five, both signals confirm. If only technical indicators show extremes while positioning remains neutral, the potential short signal is rejected, avoiding fades of trends with underlying institutional support (Kaufman, 2013).
Discretionary traders can monitor the indicator as a continuous awareness tool, informing bias and position sizing without dictating mechanical entries and exits. A discretionary trader might notice commercial positioning shifting from neutral to progressively more bullish over several months. This trend informs growing positive bias even without triggering mechanical signals.
Multi-timeframe analysis represents another powerful integration approach. A trader might use daily charts for trade execution and timing while monitoring weekly COT positioning for strategic context. When both timeframes align, highest-probability opportunities emerge.
Portfolio construction for futures traders can incorporate COT signals as an additional selection criterion. Markets showing strong technical setups AND favorable COT positioning receive highest allocations. Markets with strong technicals but neutral or unfavorable positioning receive reduced allocations.
ADVANCED METRICS AND INTERPRETATION
The metrics table transforms simple positioning data into multidimensional market intelligence. Position extremity, calculated as the absolute deviation from the historical mean normalized by standard deviation, helps identify truly unusual readings versus routine fluctuations. A reading above two standard deviations indicates ninety-fifth percentile or higher extremity. Above three standard deviations indicates ninety-ninth percentile or higher, genuinely rare positioning that historically precedes major events with high probability.
Market power, expressed as a percentage of total open interest, reveals whose positioning matters most from a mechanical market impact perspective. Consider two scenarios in gold futures. In scenario one, commercials show a COT Index reading of fifteen while their market power metric shows they hold net shorts representing thirty-five percent of open interest. This is a high-confidence bearish signal. In scenario two, commercials also show a reading of fifteen, but market power shows only eight percent. While positioning is extreme relative to this category's normal range, their limited market share means less mechanical influence on price.
The rate of change and momentum metrics highlight whether positions are accelerating or decelerating, often providing earlier warnings than absolute levels alone. A COT Index reading of seventy-five with rapidly building momentum suggests continued movement toward extremes. Conversely, a reading of eighty-five with decelerating or negative momentum indicates the positioning trend is exhausting.
Position velocity measures the rate of change in positioning changes, effectively a second derivative. When velocity shifts from positive to negative, it indicates that while positioning may still be growing, the pace of growth is slowing. This deceleration often precedes actual reversal in positioning direction by several weeks.
Sentiment divergence calculates the absolute difference between normalized commercial and large speculator index values. When commercials show extreme bearish positioning at twenty while large speculators show extreme bullish positioning at eighty, the divergence reaches sixty, representing near-maximum disagreement. Wang (2003) found that these high-divergence environments frequently preceded increased volatility and reversals. The mechanism is intuitive. Extreme divergence indicates the informed hedgers and momentum-following speculators have positioned opposite each other with conviction. One group will prove correct and profit while the other proves incorrect and suffers losses. The resolution of this disagreement through price movement often involves volatility.
The table also displays concentration metrics when available. High concentration indicates a few dominant players controlling most of the positioning within a category, while low concentration suggests broad-based participation. Broad-based positioning more reliably reflects collective market intelligence and industry consensus. If mining companies globally all independently decide to hedge aggressively at similar price levels, it suggests genuine industry-wide view about price valuations rather than circumstances specific to one firm.
DATA QUALITY AND RELIABILITY
The CFTC has maintained COT reporting in various forms since the nineteen twenties, providing nearly a century of positioning data across multiple market cycles. However, data quality and reporting standards have evolved substantially over this long period. Modern electronic reporting implemented in the late nineteen nineties and early two thousands significantly improved accuracy and timeliness compared to earlier paper-based systems.
Traders should understand that COT reports capture positions as of Tuesday's close each week. Markets remain open three additional days before publication on Friday afternoon, meaning the reported data is three days stale when received. During periods of rapid market movement or major news events, this lag can be significant. The indicator addresses this limitation by including timestamp information and staleness warnings.
The three-day lag creates particular challenges during extreme volatility episodes. Flash crashes, surprise central bank interventions, geopolitical shocks, and other high-impact events can completely transform market positioning within hours. Traders must exercise judgment about whether reported positioning remains relevant given intervening events.
Reporting thresholds also mean that not all market participants appear in disaggregated COT data. Traders holding positions below specified minimums aggregate into the non-reportable or small trader category. This aggregation affects different markets differently. In highly liquid contracts like crude oil with thousands of participants, reportable traders might represent seventy to eighty percent of open interest. In thinly traded contracts with only dozens of active participants, a few large reportable positions might represent ninety-five percent of open interest.
Another data quality consideration involves trader classification into categories. The CFTC assigns traders to commercial or non-commercial categories based on reported business purpose and activities. However, this process is not perfect. Some entities engage in both commercial and speculative activities, creating ambiguity about proper classification. The transition to Disaggregated reports attempted to address some of these ambiguities by creating more granular categories.
COMPARISON WITH ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES
Several alternative approaches to COT analysis exist in the trading community beyond the normalization methodology employed by this indicator. Some analysts focus on absolute position changes week-over-week rather than index-based normalization. This approach calculates the change in net positioning from one week to the next. The emphasis falls on momentum in positioning changes rather than absolute levels relative to history. This method potentially identifies regime shifts earlier but sacrifices cross-market comparability (Briese, 2008).
Other practitioners employ more complex statistical transformations including percentile rankings, z-score standardization, and machine learning classification algorithms. Ruan and Zhang (2018) demonstrated that machine learning models applied to COT data could achieve modest improvements in forecasting accuracy compared to simple threshold-based approaches. However, these gains came at the cost of interpretability and implementation complexity.
The COT Index indicator intentionally employs a relatively straightforward normalization methodology for several important reasons. First, transparency enhances user understanding and trust. Traders can verify calculations manually and develop intuitive feel for what different readings mean. Second, academic research suggests that most of the predictive power in COT data comes from extreme positioning levels rather than subtle patterns requiring complex statistical methods to detect. Third, robust methods that work consistently across many markets and time periods tend to be simpler rather than more complex, reducing the risk of overfitting to historical data. Fourth, the complexity costs of implementation matter for retail traders without programming teams or computational infrastructure.
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF COT TRADING
Trading based on COT data requires psychological fortitude that differs from momentum-based approaches. Contrarian positioning signals inherently mean betting against prevailing market sentiment and recent price action. When commercials reach extreme bearish positioning, prices have typically been rising, sometimes for extended periods. The price chart looks bullish, momentum indicators confirm strength, moving averages align positively. The COT signal says bet against all of this. This psychological difficulty explains why COT analysis remains underutilized relative to trend-following methods.
Human psychology strongly predisposes us toward extrapolation and recency bias. When prices rally for months, our pattern-matching brains naturally expect continued rally. The recent price action dominates our perception, overwhelming rational analysis about positioning extremes and historical probabilities. The COT signal asking us to sell requires overriding these powerful psychological impulses.
The indicator design attempts to support the required psychological discipline through several features. Clear threshold markers and signal states reduce ambiguity about when signals trigger. When the commercial index crosses below twenty, the signal is explicit and unambiguous. The background shifts to red, the signal label displays bearish, and alerts fire. This explicitness helps traders act on signals rather than waiting for additional confirmation that may never arrive.
The metrics table provides analytical justification for contrarian positions, helping traders maintain conviction during inevitable periods of adverse price movement. When a trader enters short positions based on extreme commercial bearish positioning but prices continue rallying for several weeks, doubt naturally emerges. The table display provides reassurance. Commercial positioning remains extremely bearish. Divergence remains high. The positioning thesis remains intact even though price action has not yet confirmed.
Alert functionality ensures traders do not miss signals due to inattention while also not requiring constant monitoring that can lead to emotional decision-making. Setting alerts for COT extremes enables a healthier relationship with markets. When meaningful signals occur, alerts notify them. They can then calmly assess the situation and execute planned responses.
However, no indicator design can completely overcome the psychological difficulty of contrarian trading. Some traders simply cannot maintain short positions while prices rally. For these traders, COT analysis might be better employed as an exit signal for long positions rather than an entry signal for shorts.
Ultimately, successful COT trading requires developing comfort with probabilistic thinking rather than certainty-seeking. The signals work over many observations by identifying higher-probability configurations, not by generating perfect calls on individual trades. A fifty-five or sixty percent win rate with proper risk management produces substantial profits over years, yet still means forty to forty-five percent of signals will be premature or wrong. COT analysis provides genuine edge, but edge means probability advantage, not elimination of losing trades.
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES AND CONTINUOUS LEARNING
The indicator provides extensive built-in educational resources through its documentation, detailed tooltips, and transparent calculations. However, mastering COT analysis requires study beyond any single tool or resource. Several excellent resources provide valuable extensions of the concepts covered in this guide.
Books and practitioner-focused monographs offer accessible entry points. Stephen Briese published The Commitments of Traders Bible in two thousand eight, offering detailed breakdowns of how different markets and trader categories behave (Briese, 2008). Briese's work stands out for its empirical focus and market-specific insights. Jack Schwager includes discussion of COT analysis within the broader context of market behavior in his book Market Sense and Nonsense (Schwager, 2012). Perry Kaufman's Trading Systems and Methods represents perhaps the most rigorous practitioner-focused text on systematic trading approaches including COT analysis (Kaufman, 2013).
Academic journal articles provide the rigorous statistical foundation underlying COT analysis. The Journal of Futures Markets regularly publishes research on positioning data and its predictive properties. Bessembinder and Chan's earlier work on systematic risk, hedging pressure, and risk premiums in futures markets provides theoretical foundation (Bessembinder, 1992). Chang's examination of speculator returns provides historical context (Chang, 1985). Irwin and Sanders provide essential skeptical perspective in their two thousand twelve article (Irwin and Sanders, 2012). Wang's two thousand three article provides one of the most empirical analyses of COT data across multiple commodity markets (Wang, 2003).
Online resources extend beyond academic and book-length treatments. The CFTC website provides free access to current and historical COT reports in multiple formats. The explanatory materials section offers detailed documentation of report construction, category definitions, and historical methodology changes. Traders serious about COT analysis should read these official CFTC documents to understand exactly what they are analyzing.
Commercial COT data services such as Barchart provide enhanced visualization and analysis tools beyond raw CFTC data. TradingView's educational materials, published scripts library, and user community provide additional resources for exploring different approaches to COT analysis.
The key to mastering COT analysis lies not in finding a single definitive source but rather in building understanding through multiple perspectives and information sources. Academic research provides rigorous empirical foundation. Practitioner-focused books offer practical implementation insights. Direct engagement with data through systematic backtesting develops intuition about how positioning dynamics manifest across different market conditions.
SYNTHESIZING KNOWLEDGE INTO PRACTICE
The COT Index indicator represents the synthesis of academic research, trading experience, and software engineering into a practical tool accessible to retail traders equipped with nothing more than a TradingView account and willingness to learn. What once required expensive data subscriptions, custom programming capabilities, statistical software, and institutional resources now appears as a straightforward indicator requiring only basic parameter selection and modest study to understand. This democratization of institutional-grade analysis tools represents a broader trend in financial markets over recent decades.
Yet technology and data access alone provide no edge without understanding and discipline. Markets remain relentlessly efficient at eliminating edges that become too widely known and mechanically exploited. The COT Index indicator succeeds only when users invest time learning the underlying concepts, understand the limitations and probability distributions involved, and integrate signals thoughtfully into trading plans rather than applying them mechanically.
The academic research demonstrates conclusively that institutional positioning contains genuine information about future price movements, particularly at extremes where commercial hedgers are maximally bearish or bullish relative to historical norms. This informational content is neither perfect nor deterministic but rather probabilistic, providing edge over many observations through identification of higher-probability configurations. Bessembinder and Chan's finding that commercial positioning explained modest but significant variance in future returns illustrates this probabilistic nature perfectly (Bessembinder and Chan, 1992). The effect is real and statistically significant, yet it explains perhaps ten to fifteen percent of return variance rather than most variance. Much of price movement remains unpredictable even with positioning intelligence.
The practical implication is that COT analysis works best as one component of a trading system rather than a standalone oracle. It provides the positioning dimension, revealing where the smart money has positioned and where the crowd has followed, but price action analysis provides the timing dimension. Fundamental analysis provides the catalyst dimension. Risk management provides the survival dimension. These components work together synergistically.
The indicator's design philosophy prioritizes transparency and education over black-box complexity, empowering traders to understand exactly what they are analyzing and why. Every calculation is documented and user-adjustable. The threshold markers, background coloring, tables, and clear signal states provide multiple reinforcing channels for conveying the same information.
This educational approach reflects a conviction that sustainable trading success comes from genuine understanding rather than mechanical system-following. Traders who understand why commercial positioning matters, how different trader categories behave, what positioning extremes signify, and where signals fit within probability distributions can adapt when market conditions change. Traders mechanically following black-box signals without comprehension abandon systems after normal losing streaks.
The research foundation supporting COT analysis comes primarily from commodity markets where commercial hedger informational advantages are most pronounced. Agricultural producers hedging crops know more about supply conditions than distant speculators. Energy companies hedging production know more about operating costs than financial traders. Metals miners hedging output know more about ore grades than index funds. Financial futures markets show weaker but still present effects.
The journey from reading this documentation to profitable trading based on COT analysis involves several stages that cannot be rushed. Initial reading and basic understanding represents the first stage. Historical study represents the second stage, reviewing past market cycles to observe how positioning extremes preceded major turning points. Paper trading or small-size real trading represents the third stage to experience the psychological challenges. Refinement based on results and personal psychology represents the fourth stage.
Markets will continue evolving. New participant categories will emerge. Regulatory structures will change. Technology will advance. Yet the fundamental dynamics driving COT analysis, that different market participants have different information, different motivations, and different forecasting abilities that manifest in their positioning, will persist as long as futures markets exist. While specific thresholds or optimal parameters may shift over time, the core logic remains sound and adaptable.
The trader equipped with this indicator, understanding of the theory and evidence behind COT analysis, realistic expectations about probability rather than certainty, discipline to maintain positions through adverse volatility, and patience to allow signals time to develop possesses genuine edge in markets. The edge is not enormous, markets cannot allow large persistent inefficiencies without arbitraging them away, but it is real, measurable, and exploitable by those willing to invest in learning and disciplined application.
REFERENCES
Bessembinder, H. (1992) Systematic risk, hedging pressure, and risk premiums in futures markets, Review of Financial Studies, 5(4), pp. 637-667.
Bessembinder, H. and Chan, K. (1992) The profitability of technical trading rules in the Asian stock markets, Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, 3(2-3), pp. 257-284.
Briese, S. (2008) The Commitments of Traders Bible: How to Profit from Insider Market Intelligence. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
Chang, E.C. (1985) Returns to speculators and the theory of normal backwardation, Journal of Finance, 40(1), pp. 193-208.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) (2009) Explanatory Notes: Disaggregated Commitments of Traders Report. Available at: www.cftc.gov (Accessed: 15 January 2025).
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) (2020) Commitments of Traders: About the Report. Available at: www.cftc.gov (Accessed: 15 January 2025).
Irwin, S.H. and Sanders, D.R. (2012) Testing the Masters Hypothesis in commodity futures markets, Energy Economics, 34(1), pp. 256-269.
Kaufman, P.J. (2013) Trading Systems and Methods. 5th edn. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
Ruan, Y. and Zhang, Y. (2018) Forecasting commodity futures prices using machine learning: Evidence from the Chinese commodity futures market, Applied Economics Letters, 25(12), pp. 845-849.
Sanders, D.R., Boris, K. and Manfredo, M. (2004) Hedgers, funds, and small speculators in the energy futures markets: an analysis of the CFTC's Commitments of Traders reports, Energy Economics, 26(3), pp. 425-445.
Schwager, J.D. (2012) Market Sense and Nonsense: How the Markets Really Work and How They Don't. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
Tharp, V.K. (2008) Super Trader: Make Consistent Profits in Good and Bad Markets. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Wang, C. (2003) The behavior and performance of major types of futures traders, Journal of Futures Markets, 23(1), pp. 1-31.
Williams, L.R. and Noseworthy, M. (2009) The Right Stock at the Right Time: Prospering in the Coming Good Years. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
FURTHER READING
For traders seeking to deepen their understanding of COT analysis and futures market positioning beyond this documentation, the following resources provide valuable extensions:
Academic Journal Articles:
Fishe, R.P.H. and Smith, A. (2012) Do speculators drive commodity prices away from supply and demand fundamentals?, Journal of Commodity Markets, 1(1), pp. 1-16.
Haigh, M.S., Hranaiova, J. and Overdahl, J.A. (2007) Hedge funds, volatility, and liquidity provision in energy futures markets, Journal of Alternative Investments, 9(4), pp. 10-38.
Kocagil, A.E. (1997) Does futures speculation stabilize spot prices? Evidence from metals markets, Applied Financial Economics, 7(1), pp. 115-125.
Sanders, D.R. and Irwin, S.H. (2011) The impact of index funds in commodity futures markets: A systems approach, Journal of Alternative Investments, 14(1), pp. 40-49.
Books and Practitioner Resources:
Murphy, J.J. (1999) Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets: A Guide to Trading Methods and Applications. New York: New York Institute of Finance.
Pring, M.J. (2002) Technical Analysis Explained: The Investor's Guide to Spotting Investment Trends and Turning Points. 4th edn. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Federal Reserve and Research Institution Publications:
Federal Reserve Banks regularly publish working papers examining commodity markets, futures positioning, and price discovery mechanisms. The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City maintain active research programs in this area.
Online Resources:
The CFTC website provides free access to current and historical COT reports, explanatory materials, and regulatory documentation.
Barchart offers enhanced COT data visualization and screening tools.
TradingView's community library contains numerous published scripts and educational materials exploring different approaches to positioning analysis.
Indicadores y estrategias
OBV (Delta or regular)This is a quite simple script to apply some choices to OBV.
You can choose to use regular OBV values or you can choose to use delta OBV values.
Delta OBV values calculates the delta between selling volume and buying volume per bar to find discrepancies.
You can make the OBV a smoothed line or just keep the normal rigid line. Rigid line is default.
A secondary smoothed OBV line is added automatically with color change if the OBV is above or below the smoothed line.
You can set your desired MA from SMA, EMA, VWMA and WMA, The same will be applied to both lines if chosen to smooth them both.
Both lines are editable from the styles tab (visibility, color and line type)
If you for some reason don't want color change on the secondary line, chose the same color for both color 1 and 2.
Simple delta OBV example:
If a red bar has a long lower wick, OBV will calculate the entire bar towards bearish volume, while the delta will check if there's more buying or selling happening in total. Some times you'll be able to catch divergences in the volume which implies a reversal might be in the making.
For instance more selling on a green candle making the OBV drop instead of increasing or vise versa.
Hopefully someone finds is useful.
Inside Bar + Harami ComboThis indicator visually highlights Inside Bars, Outside Bars, and Harami candlestick patterns directly on your chart using clean color-coded candles — no labels, no shapes, just visual clarity.
It helps traders quickly identify potential reversal and continuation setups by coloring candles according to the detected pattern type.
🔍 Patterns Detected
🟨 Inside Bar — Current candle’s range is completely inside the previous candle’s range.
Often signals price contraction before a breakout.
💗 Outside Bar — Current candle’s high and low exceed the previous candle’s range.
Indicates volatility expansion and possible trend continuation.
🟩 Bullish Harami — A small bullish candle within the body of a prior bearish candle.
Suggests potential reversal to the upside.
🟥 Bearish Harami — A small bearish candle within the body of a prior bullish candle.
Suggests potential reversal to the downside.
⚙️ Features
Customizable colors for each pattern type.
Simple overlay visualization — no shapes, no labels, just colored candles.
Harami colors automatically override Inside/Outside colors when both occur on the same bar.
Lightweight logic for smooth performance on any timeframe or symbol.
💡 How to Use
Apply the indicator to your chart.
Configure colors in the settings panel if desired.
Watch for highlighted candles:
Inside Bars often precede breakouts.
Harami patterns can mark reversal zones.
Combine with trend tools (like moving averages) to confirm setups.
⚠️ Note
This indicator is for visual pattern detection and educational use only.
Always combine candlestick signals with broader technical or market context before trading decisions.
Yield Curve RegimesCurrently we are seeing equities and all other risk assets rallying to new all time high. But when will this stop?
There are multiple risks/signals i am monitoring to stay at the right side of the macro trade. Macro is everything: “When you get the Big-Picture wrong you wont live long.”
So lets go through a major risk that could be the catalyst for the next deeper correction
Capital needs to begin to move BACK across the risk curve as the yield curve steepens. We don't know if the source of the the crash will be from bear steepening or bull steepening because its unclear if long end rates blowing out will be the source of the crash.
If the Fed continues to make the policy error of being overly accommodative at this high level of nominal GDP + Inflation risk, the long end of the curve will price this.
Simple: If the Fed is to lose the long end can move up to price the inflation risk, which could ultimately pull risk assets down.
We have not seen this yet because the last inflation prints came in flat, but I expect these to come in higher over the next 6 months.
This means watching long end rates and their potential drag on equities will be critical. We are not seeing this yet as the Russell is sitting at all time highs and capital continues to move into low quality factors.
Look where the long end is moving + the attribution analysis for the move.
→ Down growth risk
→ Up Inflation risk
+ look what the 2s10s & the 10s30 are pricing and how these changes in the curve connect to the current yield curve regimes.
You can get the Trading view Skript 100% free here
HV Spike Strategy (HVP + OR Breakout + Reversal + TP/SL Modes)Here is a script that I tried to make it simple, although it has several parameters, I will try to explain, here we go:
Logic: Open Range Breakout: otherwise knows as First Candle Rule, usually used for the first candle in the opening of a market session, in my strategy there is an option to use it even for Crypto that operate 24/7, how to do that? Simply by detecting Volatility from the HVP (Historical Volatility Percentile). Then the ORB logic kicks in and the first candle with high volatility gives the ranges for the trades. The proper HVP Activation Threshold has to be selected for each currency pair/index/crypto in order to have maximum profit.
Enter a trade: when the price goes 100% above/below the First Candle Rule Range. That way it is filtering fake breakouts. Also if the price reverses back into the range the strategy takes the opposite trade.
Exit a trade: SL/TP By percentage or ATR, selection in the input menu.
My intention is to avoid using lagging indicators or guessing of Price Action, purely Bull/Bear indication by the first candle.
I hope you find this helpful! Wishing all successful Trades!
Fibonacci levels MTF 2WEEK KKKKA Fibonacci arc trading strategy uses circular arcs drawn at Fibonacci retracement levels (38.2%, 50%, 61.8%) to identify potential support and resistance zones, often intersecting with a trend line. This strategy helps traders anticipate price reversals or pullbacks, and it should be used in conjunction with other indicators
HTF Session Boxes H4 > H2 > H1HTF Session Boxes H4 > H2 > H1
Visualize higher timeframe candle structures on lower timeframe charts with nested, customizable boxes.
Overview
HTF Session Boxes plots 4-hour, 2-hour, and 1-hour candle ranges as nested boxes directly on your lower timeframe charts (15M and below). This provides instant visual context of higher timeframe structure without switching between different chart timeframes.
Key Features
- Three Timeframe Levels: Simultaneously displays 4H, 2H, and 1H candle boxes
- Nested Design: Boxes are layered inside each other for clear hierarchical structure
- Real-Time Updates: Boxes dynamically adjust as higher timeframe candles develop
Fully Customizable:
-Individual colors and transparency for each timeframe
-Custom border colors, widths, and styles (solid, dashed, dotted)
-Toggle each timeframe on/off independently
Best Use Cases
-Scalping & Day Trading: Maintain awareness of higher timeframe structure while trading lower
timeframes
-Session Analysis: Clearly see 4H session boundaries and internal 2H/1H divisions
-Support/Resistance: Identify key levels where higher timeframe candles open, close, or create
highs/lows
-Multi-Timeframe Confluence: Spot when multiple timeframes align at key price levels
Auto Session Fib/Open LevelsThis indicator automatically plots fib levels and key opening levels so you don't have to (:
Default levels are set to Longhorn Trades (Peter Kennedy) fib settings and two key openings of my liking.
EXTPO TRENDIndicator designed for traders who prefer quick scalping or day trading.
Applicable to timeframes below M15.
Currently, I’m using it on BTC M1.
Note:
When the status is Buy, only buy signals will appear.
When the status is Sell, only sell signals will appear.
When the status is Off, no signals will appear because one of the entry conditions is not met.
Triple EMA (5, 8, 13) + Confirmed Alerts with SoundThis indicator uses three Exponential Moving Averages (EMA 5, 8, and 13) to generate buy and sell signals when the EMAs are properly aligned and not touching. Signals are confirmed on candle close and can trigger customizable sound alerts directly from the TradingView alert panel.
3C FractalsIts based on Williams Fractals indicator, but instead of using 5 candles to mark the fractals, it uses only 3.
Trendline Breakout Strategy Strategy should place entries & exits so that it can be backtested (use strategy.entry and strategy.exit with explicit stop and limit prices). Include an option for fixed percent position sizing and an option for fixed contract size. Draw the trendline on the chart (with option to hide/show) and add labels that show: bias (Bull/Bear), trendline slope, entry price, SL, TP and the reason (e.g., "Trendline Breakout"). Provide user inputs for: EMA length (default 200), lookback for pivot detection, pivot sensitivity (left/right bars), quantity mode (percent / contracts), risk percent or fixed size, enable/disable backtest prints, and enable alerts. Avoid repainting: use confirmed pivot logic (pivot detection must use completed bars) and only take entry after breakout confirmed on close. Document any limitations (for example, trendline using two highest/highest bars inside lookback is approximate). Add clear comments, helpful variable names, and include example alertcondition lines for entry and exit signals.
Fib Time Projections aFib Time Projections aFib Time Projections aFib Time Projections aFib Time Projections a
Session Highs and LowsThis indicator highlights the New York, London, and Asian trading sessions — plotting each session’s highs and lows directly on your chart to help visualize intraday ranges and liquidity levels.
⸻
✨ Features
• Session Range Visualization
Automatically marks the high and low of each trading session with colored lines.
This makes it easy to identify where price expanded, consolidated, or built liquidity during each market phase.
• Session Background Zones (Optional)
Toggle background fills to highlight active sessions for clearer visual separation of NY, London, and Asian trading hours.
• Customizable Settings
• Enable or disable each session independently
• Adjust session times and colors
• Choose whether to fill session backgrounds
• Timezone Aware
All sessions are aligned to New York time by default, ensuring consistent mapping across instruments.
⸻
🎯 Use Case
A perfect tool for traders who track session-based liquidity, breaks of structure, or session-to-session continuity.
Quickly spot the Asian range, London expansion, and New York reversal windows — key components in intraday strategy development.
⸻
⚙️ Inputs
• Toggle sessions: NY / London / Asian
• Background fill on/off
• Label color customization
• Adjustable session times
⸻
📈 Why Use It
Understanding where each session establishes its range high and low provides critical context for liquidity grabs, session overlaps, and structural shifts throughout the day.
This simple yet powerful visual map enhances precision for ICT-style, smart money, or price action-based trading models.
S&P Trading System with PivotsThe S&P Trading System with Pivots is a TradingView indicator designed for the 30-minute SPX chart to guide SPY options trading. It uses a trend-following strategy with:
10 SMA and 50 SMA: Plots a 10-period (blue) and 50-period (red) Simple Moving Average. A bullish crossover (10 SMA > 50 SMA) signals a potential buy (green triangle below bar), while a bearish crossunder (10 SMA < 50 SMA) signals a sell or exit (red triangle above bar).
Trend Bias: Colors the background green (bullish) or red (bearish) based on SMA positions.
Pivot Points: Marks recent highs (orange circles) and lows (purple circles) as potential resistance and support levels, using a 5-bar lookback period.
EMA HeatmapEMA Heatmap — Indicator Description
The EMA Order Heatmap is a visual trend-structure tool designed to show whether the market is currently trending bullish, trending bearish, or moving through a neutral consolidation phase. It evaluates the alignment of multiple exponential moving averages (EMAs) at three different structural layers: short-term daily, medium-term daily, and weekly macro trend. This creates a quick and intuitive picture of how well price movement is organized across timeframes.
Each layer of the heatmap is scored from bearish to bullish based on how the EMAs are stacked relative to each other. When EMAs are in a fully bullish configuration, the row displays a bright green or lime color. Fully bearish alignment is shown in red. Yellow tones appear when the EMAs are mixed or compressing, indicating uncertainty, trend exhaustion, or a change in market character. The three rows combined offer a concise view of whether strength or weakness is isolated to one timeframe or broad across the market.
This indicator is best used as a trend filter before making trading decisions. Traders may find more consistent setups when the majority of the heatmap supports the direction of their trade. Green-dominant conditions suggest a trending bullish environment where long trades can be favored. Red-dominant conditions indicate bearish momentum and stronger potential for short opportunities. When yellow becomes more prominent, the market may be transitioning, ranging, or gearing up for a breakout, making timing more challenging and risk higher.
• Helps quickly identify directional bias
• Highlights when trends strengthen, weaken, or turn
• Provides insight into whether momentum is supported by higher timeframes
• Encourages traders to avoid fighting market structure
It is important to recognize the limitations. EMAs are lagging indicators, so the heatmap may confirm a trend after the initial move is underway, especially during fast reversals. In sideways or low-volume environments, the structure can shift frequently, reducing clarity. This tool does not generate entry or exit signals on its own and should be paired with price action, momentum studies, or support and resistance analysis for precise trade execution.
The EMA Order Heatmap offers a clean and reliable way to stay aligned with the broader market environment and avoid lower-quality trades in indecisive conditions. It supports more disciplined decision-making by helping traders focus on setups that match the prevailing structural trend.
Average Daily Session Range PRO [Capitalize Labs]Average Daily Session Range PRO
The Average Daily Session Range PRO (ADSR PRO) is a professional-grade analytical tool designed to quantify and visualize the probabilistic range behavior of intraday sessions.
It calculates directional range statistics using historical session data to show how far price typically moves up or down from the session open.
This helps traders understand session volatility profiles, range asymmetry, and probabilistic extensions relative to prior performance.
Key Features
Asymmetric Range Modeling: Separately tracks average upside and downside excursions from each session open, revealing directional bias and volatility imbalance.
Probability Engine Modes: Choose between Rolling Window (fixed-length lookback) and Exponential Decay (weighted historical memory) to control how recent or historic data influences probabilities.
Session-Aware Statistics: Calculates values independently for each defined session, allowing region-specific insights (e.g., Tokyo, London, New York).
Dynamic Range Table: Displays key metrics such as average up/down ticks, expected range extensions, and percentage probabilities.
Adaptive Display: Works across timeframes and instruments, automatically aligning with user-defined session start and end times.
Visual Clarity: Includes clean range markers and labels optimized for both backtesting and live-chart analysis.
Intended Use
ADSR PRO is a statistical reference indicator.
It does not generate buy/sell signals or predictive forecasts.
Its purpose is to help users observe historical session behavior and volatility tendencies to support their own discretionary analysis.
Credits
Developed by Capitalize Labs, specialists in quantitative and discretionary market research tools.
Risk Warning
This material is educational research only and does not constitute financial advice, investment recommendation, or a solicitation to buy or sell any instrument.
Foreign exchange and CFDs are complex, leveraged products that carry a high risk of rapid losses; leverage amplifies both gains and losses, and you should not trade with funds you cannot afford to lose.
Market conditions can change without notice, and news or illiquidity may cause gaps and slippage; stop-loss orders are not guaranteed.
The analysis presented does not take into account your objectives, financial situation, or risk tolerance.
Before acting, assess suitability in light of your circumstances and consider seeking advice from a licensed professional.
Past performance and back-tested or hypothetical scenarios are not reliable indicators of future results, and no outcome or level mentioned here is assured.
You are solely responsible for all trading decisions, including position sizing and risk management.
No external links, promotions, or contact details are provided, in line with TradingView House Rules.
PDB - RSI Based Buy/Sell signals with 4 MARSI Based Buy/Sell Signals on Price chart + 4 MA System
This indicator plots RSI-based Buy & Sell signals directly on the price chart , combined with a 4-Moving-Average trend filter (20/50/100/200) for higher accuracy and cleaner trade timing.
The signal triggers when RSI reaches user-defined overbought/oversold levels, but unlike a standard RSI, this version plots the signals **on the chart**, not in the RSI window — making entries and exits easier to see in real time.
RSI Levels Are Fully Customizable
The default RSI thresholds are 30 (oversold) and 70 (overbought).
However, you can adjust these to fit your trading style. For example:
> When day trading on the 5–15 min timeframe, I personally use 35 (oversold) and 75 (overbought) to catch moves earlier.
> The example shown in the preview image uses 10-minute timeframe settings.
You can change the RSI levels to trigger signals from **any value you choose**, allowing you to tailor the indicator to scalping, day trading, or swing trading.
4 Moving Averages Included:
20, 50, 100, 200 MAs act as dynamic trend filters so you can:
✔ trade signals only in the direction of trend
✔ avoid false reversals
✔ identify momentum shifts more clearly
Works on all markets and timeframes — crypto, stocks, FX, indices.
Reactive Curvature Smoother Moving Average IndicatorSummary in one paragraph
RCS MA is a reactive curvature smoother for any liquid instrument on intraday through swing timeframes. It helps you act only when context strengthens by adapting its window length with a normalized path energy score and by smoothing with robust residual weights over a quadratic fit, then optionally blending a capped one step forecast. Add it to a clean chart and watch the single colored line. Shapes can shift while a bar forms and settle on close. For conservative use, judge on bar close.
Scope and intent
• Markets: major FX pairs, index futures, large cap equities, liquid crypto
• Timeframes: one minute to daily
• Purpose: reduce lag in trends while resisting chop and outliers
• Limits: indicator only, no orders
Originality and usefulness
• Novelty: adaptive window selection by minimizing normalized path energy with directionality bias, plus Huber weighted residuals and curvature aware penalty, finished with a mintick capped forecast blend
• Failure modes addressed: whipsaws from fixed length MAs and outlier spikes that pull means
• Testable: Inputs expose all components and optional diagnostics show chosen length, directionality, and energy
• Portable yardstick: forecast cap uses mintick to stay symbol aware
Method overview in plain language
Base measures
• Range span of the tested window and a path energy defined as the sum of squared price increments, normalized by span
Components
Adaptive window chooser: scans L between Min and Max using an energy over trend score and picks the lowest score
Robust smoother: fits a quadratic to the last L bars, computes residuals, applies Huber weights and an exponential residual penalty scaled down when curvature is high
Forecast blend: projects one step ahead from the quadratic, caps displacement by a multiple of mintick, blends by user weight
Fusion rule
• Final line equals robust mean plus optional capped forecast blend
Signal rule
• Visual bias only: color turns lime when close is above the line, red otherwise
What you will see on the chart
• One colored line that tightens in trends and relaxes in chop
• Optional debug overlays for core value, chosen L, directionality, and energy
• Optional last bar label with L, directionality, and energy
• Reminder: drawings can move intrabar and settle on close
Inputs with guidance
Setup
• Source: price series to smooth
Logic
• Min window l_min. Typical 5 to 21. Higher increases stability, adds lag
• Max window l_max. Typical 40 to 128. Higher reduces noise, adds lag ceiling
• Length step grid_step. Typical 1 to 8. Smaller is finer and heavier
• Trend bias trend_bias. Typical 0.50 to 0.80. Higher favors trend persistence
• Residual penalty lambda_base. Typical 0.8 to 2.0. Higher downweights large residuals more
• Huber threshold huber_k. Typical 1.5 to 3.0. Higher admits more outliers
• Curvature guard curv_guard. Typical 0.3 to 1.0. Higher reduces influence when curve is tight
• Forecast blend lead_blend. 0 disables. Typical 0.10 to 0.40
• Forecast cap lead_limit. Typical 1 to 5 minticks
• Show chosen L and metrics show_debug. Diagnostics toggle
Optional: enable diagnostics to see length, direction, and energy
Realism and responsible publication
• No performance claims. Past results never guarantee future outcomes
• Shapes can move while bars are open and settle on close
• Use on standard candles for analysis and combine with your own risk process
Honest limitations and failure modes
• Very quiet regimes can reduce energy contrast, length selection may hover near the bounds
• Gap heavy symbols can disrupt quadratic fit on the window edges
• Excessive forecast blend may look anticipatory; use low values and the cap
Svopex Session Highlighter# Session Highlighter
## Description
**Session Highlighter** is a powerful Pine Script indicator designed to visually identify and mark specific trading hours on your chart. This tool helps traders focus on their preferred trading sessions by highlighting the background during active hours and marking the session start with customizable visual markers.
## Key Features
- **📊 Session Background Highlighting**: Automatically shades the chart background during your defined trading hours (default: 7:00 - 23:00)
- **🎯 Smart Session Start Marker**: Places a marker on the last candle before session start, intelligently adapting to your timeframe:
- 1 Hour chart: Marker at 6:00
- 15 Minute chart: Marker at 6:45
- 5 Minute chart: Marker at 6:55
- 1 Minute chart: Marker at 6:59
- **🌍 Timezone Support**: Choose from multiple timezones (Europe/Prague, Europe/London, America/New_York, UTC)
- **🎨 5 Marker Styles**: Customize your session start indicator:
- Triangle
- Circle
- Diamond
- Label with time text
- Vertical line
- **⚙️ Fully Customizable**: Adjust start/end hours, timezone, and marker style through simple settings
## Settings
- **Start Hour**: Set your session start time (0-23)
- **End Hour**: Set your session end time (0-23)
- **Timezone**: Select your trading timezone
- **Marker Style**: Choose your preferred visual marker
## Use Cases
- Identify London/New York trading sessions
- Mark Asian session hours
- Highlight your personal trading windows
- Avoid trading during off-hours
- Perfect for day traders and scalpers
## Installation
1. Copy the Pine Script code
2. Open TradingView Pine Editor
3. Paste the code and click "Add to Chart"
4. Configure settings to match your trading schedule
VolumeAnlaysis### Volume Analysis (VA) Indicator
**Overview**
The Volume Analysis (VA) indicator is a dynamic overlay tool designed for traders seeking to identify high-volume breakouts, retests, and multi-timeframe volume-driven price cycles. By combining volume spikes with price action and support/resistance boxes, it highlights potential trend continuations, reversals, and cycle shifts. Ideal for intraday and swing trading on stocks, forex, or crypto, it uses a Fibonacci-inspired 1.618 multiplier to detect significant volume surges, then maps them to visual boxes and key levels for actionable insights.
This indicator draws from volume profile concepts but focuses on **breakout confirmation** and **cycle momentum**, helping you spot when "smart money" volume aligns with price extremes. It's particularly useful in volatile markets where volume precedes price moves.
**How It Works**
1. **Volume Break Detection**:
- Identifies a "Volume Break" when the current bar's volume exceeds 1.618x the highest volume from the prior 5 bars. This signals unusual activity, often preceding breakouts.
- A "Volume Retest" triggers exactly 3 bars after a break if volume has been falling steadily over those 3 bars—indicating a pullback for re-accumulation/distribution.
2. **Visual Annotations**:
- **Labels**: Green/red/yellow labels mark Volume Breaks and Retests, positioned above/below the bar based on candle direction for clarity.
- **Demand/Supply Boxes**:
- Blue semi-transparent boxes form around Retest bars, extending rightward to act as dynamic support/resistance.
- Green (bullish) or red (bearish) boxes draw from Volume Breaks, based on the original candle's open/close, highlighting potential zones for continuation.
- Limited to 5 boxes max to avoid chart clutter; older boxes fade as new ones form.
3. **Box Interaction Signals**:
- When price enters a box:
- **Reversal Hints**: Maroon (bearish rejection) or lime (bullish rejection) labels on closes against the trend with opening price momentum.
- **Breakout Arrows**: Up/down arrows on crossovers/crossunders of box tops/bottoms from Retest boxes.
- Scans all active boxes for interactions, prioritizing recent volume events.
4. **Multi-Timeframe Volume Cycles**:
- Aggregates the "Volume Break Max" level (a proxy for key price extremes tied to volume spikes) across timeframes: 1min, 5min, 10min, 30min, and 65min (using `request.security`).
- Computes **MaxVolBreak** (highest extreme) and **MinVolBreak** (lowest extreme) for trend-following levels.
- Tracks **Percent Volume Greater/Less Than Close**: Sums volumes from TFs where price is below/above these levels, creating a momentum ratio.
- **CrossClose**: Plots the prior close where this ratio crosses (gray line), signaling cycle shifts—bullish below MinVolBreak, bearish above MaxVolBreak.
- **Fills**: Red fill above CrossClose/MaxVolBreak (bearish cycle); green below CrossClose/MinVolBreak (bullish cycle).
5. **Plots**:
- Black lines for MaxVolBreak (⏫) and MinVolBreak (⏬).
- Gray 🔄 for CrossClose.
- Colors dynamically adjust (green/red) based on close relative to levels.
**Key Features**
- **Trend vs. Reversal Modes**: Toggle alerts for trend-following breaks (crosses of Max/MinVolBreak) or reversal signals (crosses of CrossClose).
- **Multi-TF Fusion**: Optionally include the chart's native timeframe in Max/Min calculations for finer tuning.
- **Box Management**: Auto-prunes to 5 boxes; focuses on retest/break alignments for "inside bar" logic.
- **Momentum Filters**: Uses rising/falling opens and crossovers for label precision, reducing noise.
- **Customizable**: Simple inputs for alert visibility and timeframe inclusion.
**Settings**
| Input | Default | Description |
|-------|---------|-------------|
| Show Volume Reversal Breaks | False | Enables alerts/labels for CrossClose crosses (cycle reversals). |
| Show Trend Following Breaks | True | Enables alerts for Max/MinVolBreak crosses (trend signals). |
| Use Current Time | False | Includes chart's native TF in multi-TF Max/Min calculations. |
**Alerts**
- **Reversal Alerts** (if enabled): "Volume Reverse Bullish/Bearish Break of " on close crosses of CrossClose.
- **Trend Alerts** (if enabled): "Trend Volume Bullish/Bearish Signal" on close crosses of Max/MinVolBreak; plus notes if prior low/high aligns with levels.
- All alerts include ticker and level value for easy scanning. Use `alert.freq_once_per_bar` to avoid spam.
**Trading Ideas**
- **Bullish Entry**: Green box formation + price holding MinVolBreak + upward arrow on retest box. Target next resistance.
- **Bearish Entry**: Red box + close above MaxVolBreak + red fill activation. Stop below recent low.
- **Cycle Trading**: Watch CrossClose crosses for regime shifts—fade extremes in overextended cycles.
- **Best Timeframes**: 5-30min for intraday; combine with daily for swings. Works best on liquid assets with reliable volume data.
**Limitations & Notes**
- Relies on accurate volume data (e.g., stocks/forex); less effective on low-volume or synthetic instruments.
- Boxes extend rightward but don't auto-delete—monitor for clutter on long histories (max_bars_back=500).
- Some logic (e.g., exact 3-bar retest) is rigid; backtest for your market.
- Open-source under MPL 2.0—fork and tweak as needed!
For questions or enhancements, drop a comment below. Happy trading! 🚀
