Weekly Commitments of Traders positioning for the report dated 19 May 2026. Net position is longs minus shorts. Week-on-week change uses the CFTC's own change columns from the same file. No price targets, no narrative — just what the reportable categories actually did.
| Contract | Institutional | Speculative |
|---|---|---|
| E-Mini S&P 500 (ES) | Asset Managers: net long 1,008,168 (-49,882 w/w — cut longs / added shorts) | Leveraged Funds: net short 402,312 (+27,043 w/w — added longs / cut shorts) |
| E-Mini Nasdaq 100 (NQ) | Asset Managers: net long 92,301 (+2,083 w/w — added longs / cut shorts) | Leveraged Funds: net short 45,371 (+6,671 w/w — added longs / cut shorts) |
| Gold (GC) | Swap Dealers (proxy): net short 173,715 (+16,341 w/w — added longs / cut shorts) | Managed Money: net long 93,540 (-4,475 w/w — cut longs / added shorts) |
| Crude Oil (CL) | Swap Dealers (proxy): net short 572,558 (-19,017 w/w — cut longs / added shorts) | Managed Money: net long 98,219 (+25,418 w/w — added longs / cut shorts) |
| Euro FX (6E) | Asset Managers: net long 270,767 (-19,513 w/w — cut longs / added shorts) | Leveraged Funds: net long 16,317 (-1,686 w/w — cut longs / added shorts) |
| Japanese Yen (6J) | Asset Managers: net short 41,886 (-21,894 w/w — cut longs / added shorts) | Leveraged Funds: net short 64,945 (-2,505 w/w — cut longs / added shorts) |
| 10Y T-Note (ZN) | Asset Managers: net long 2,267,251 (+147,110 w/w — added longs / cut shorts) | Leveraged Funds: net short 1,952,737 (+4,205 w/w — added longs / cut shorts) |
| Bitcoin (BTC) | Asset Managers: net long 4,821 (-979 w/w — cut longs / added shorts) | Leveraged Funds: net short 8,961 (+2,109 w/w — added longs / cut shorts) |
Source: CFTC weekly reports. Auto-generated draft — review before publishing.
Honestly, the bond move is the one to sit up for. Asset Managers added +147,000 contracts to 10Y T-Note longs in a single week. That’s serious size from the patient money — they’re not doing that for fun. They’re either hedging against a growth scare or positioning for the rate-cut conversation to come back into vogue. Either way, if yields start falling next week, this is where it started.
Crude’s a different story and one I’d treat with more caution. Specs piled into longs (+25k) while the swap dealers — who tend to be the smarter side in physical commodities because they actually move barrels — leaned harder into shorts (−19k). When the speculative crowd is buying and the people on the physical side are selling, that often marks where rallies start to feel tired. Not a sell signal on its own, but worth knowing if you’re already long.
The Yen story is just more of the same. Both Asset Managers and Leveraged Funds added shorts again. The “short Yen, long USD/JPY” trade is one of the most one-sided in macro right now. Doesn’t mean it can’t keep working — these things often do for longer than feels reasonable — but the risk/reward of joining it late is getting thin.
Equities, less to talk about. ES positioning is easing off from both sides (specs covering shorts, instos lightening longs) which usually means people are waiting on something — Fed-speak, earnings, a data print. NQ has a small bullish tilt but nothing dramatic. If you’re trading the indices next week, the calendar matters more than the positioning.
Bitcoin: nothing. Both sides barely moved. Skip it.
One thing worth saying every time: the COT report is a Tuesday snapshot released Friday. Three sessions of price action have already happened since the cut-off. It tells you where the money was, not necessarily where it is now. Use it as context for what big players are thinking, not as a trade signal.