Holiday Delay for COT Report

Happy New Year! The latest Commitments of Traders report will be delayed until Monday because of the New Year holiday.

See you back here Monday or Tuesday with a new COT update.

Dramatic Bearish Turn in S&P 500 Data

When will this melt-up in equities end?

Maybe soon. Or at least, it could be in for a hiccup.

At least, that's what the latest Commitments of Traders data seems to be saying.

Last week's data on trader positioning in the S&P 500 has pushed my signal from bullish (which it's been since Sept. 9) to bearish in two weeks' time. The signal has a two-week trade delay, so it takes effect only on the open of trading the week of January 13, 2014.

In fact, the "smart money" commercial hedgers in S&P 500 futures and options are extraordinarily bearish. Their net position as a percentage of the total open interest hit 2.07 standard deviations below the moving average I'm using for that setup.

Natural Gas Signals Flip-flop

The COT data move coincides with a massive negative divergence on the weekly and monthly S&P 500 charts between the rising index and the Tick Index, a good indicator of market sentiment.

In other news, as noted last week, my natural gas setup went from bearish to bullish on this week's open, while my 30-year Treasury bond signal went to cash.

The natural gas signal lasts just one week, then goes to cash on the open the week of January 6.

See my latest signals table for more details on trader positioning and signals in the 10 markets I trade using the COT data issued free weekly by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Good luck this week, and Happy Holidays.

Also, best wishes for the New Year to you and your family for those of you using the new calendar. (Us Ukies know New Year's Day is actually Jan. 14!)

Holiday Delay

Last week's Commitments of Traders report is delayed due to Christmas until Monday. Hope you're having a good holiday!

See you back here after Monday's COT release.

Christmas Week Signals: Banks to Bearish, Crude to Cash

New weekly trader data has given me two new signals taking effect on the coming week's open of trading and two other signals taking effect in a week's time:

- BKX U.S. Bank Index: This signal goes to bearish on Monday's open of trading.
- Crude oil: Crude goes to cash on Monday's open.

As well, in a week's time, my signal for natural gas goes bullish, while my signal for the 30-year Treasury bond goes to cash (i.e. on the open the week of Dec. 30).

See my latest signals table for more details on Friday's Commitments of Traders data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Good luck this week, and holiday best wishes to all!

Seachange in Latest COT Data

Lots of change in the latest Commitments of Traders data.

After a brief lull of indecision that put most of my signals into cash, Friday's COT report from the CFTC has riled up most of my setups and put them back into positions.

You have to see my latest signals table to appreciate the remarkable upheaval.

New signals taking effect on the coming week's open:

- cash for the BKX U.S. Bank Index
- bullish for the Nasdaq-100 and silver
- bearish for natural gas, copper, crude oil and the 30-year Treasury

Bullish On Balance?

On balance, this dramatic trader realignment seems to be a progression of the slightly more positive news I reported in last week's post.

Banks had previously been bearish, while the Nasdaq-100 now becomes bullish. A bearish signal for the bond would also tend to be bullish for equities.

The commodities are a real grab-bag, but you have to discount the bearish natural gas signal. Natural gas isn't correlated at all with equities.

Of those remaining, copper and crude going bearish may be a continuation of the ongoing decline in commodity prices. That may be longer-term bearish for equities, but for the shorter term it's probably not relevant.

Silver is now joining gold in the bullish column, which may be more of a portent for the U.S. dollar than equities. And in fact, a decline in the greenback tends to be bullish for equities.

All in all, it's just a bunch of speculation! And next week's COT data could erase everything I've just said, as so often happens.

Good luck this week.

S&P 500 Smart Money Pulls Back From Bearish Posturing

Not much to report after the latest Commitments of Traders report Friday.

All my signals remain the same as last week, as you can see on my latest signals table.

The "smart money" commercial hedgers in the S&P 500 have pulled back a little from their recently fairly bearish posturing. 

They didn't get bearish enough to affect my bullish signal, though they got close in mid-November, according to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data.

As well, my natural gas signal will go from cash to bearish in a week's time on the open of trading the week of Dec. 16. 

We woke up to a nice dusting of snow here in Quebec's Eastern Townships, and there's more coming down. Hope your holiday season is going happily too.

Good luck this week!

Four Markets Go to Cash After Latest COT Data

The holiday-delayed Commitments of Traders data is in, and I've just updated my latest signals table with the results.

The weekly COT data has given me a bunch of new cash signals taking effect on this week's open of trading. The following markets go to cash: natural gas (though that's a signal we knew about last week; see my previous weekly update); silver, crude oil and the 30-year Treasury bond.

All other signals remain the same:

- bullish for the S&P 500 and gold
- bearish for the BKX U.S. Bank Index (a basket of U.S. financials)
- cash for the Nasdaq-100, Nikkei and copper

Thanks for your patience with the latest delayed COT update. Good luck this week!

This Just In: Gobblers Delay Important Data

Holiday delay this week due to Thanksgiving in the U.S.

Us Canadians already had our bird a few weeks ago. To American readers, hope yours was as tasty as ours!

I'll be back here with a Commitments of Traders update after Monday afternoon's data release.

Gotta Love the Commitments Data

A few new signals take effect on the coming week's open of trading based on the latest Commitments of Traders data:

- cash for the Nasdaq-100
- bearish for the BKX U.S. Bank Index
- bullish for silver

Also, my very special (to me at least) signal for natural gas stays bullish one more week, then goes to cash on the open of Dec. 2. God love it! (If you traded the latest signal, you know what I mean - knock on wood.)

Hope you've had a good weekend, and good luck next week.

Natural Gas Goes Bullish; Banks and Silver to Cash: COT Data

Three signals take effect on the coming week's open based on the latest trader positioning as revealed in the weekly Commitments of Traders reports:

- bullish for natural gas
- cash for the BKX U.S. Bank Index and silver

See my latest signals table for more details on trader positioning in these markets and the seven other markets I trade using the free COT data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Have a good week!

Trader Data Returns, Signals Bullish for Crude, Bearish for Bond

The weekly Commitments of Traders data is finally all up to date on the CFTC website.

And yes, that means the COTs Timer signals are back in action.

See my newly updated latest signals table to check how traders are positioning themselves in the 10 markets I'm trading using the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's data.

Natural Gas Bullish in a Week's Time

Some new signals take effect on this coming week's open:

- bullish for crude oil

- bearish for the 30-year Treasury bond (meaning yields would go up)

Also, copper goes to cash, but since I wasn't trading the earlier signal using the COT data, that's really neither here nor there.

Note too that my natural gas signal, in cash this coming week, goes to bullish in a week's time, on the open of Nov. 18.

Thanks for your patience during our forced hiatus due to the U.S. government shutdown.

I hope you've done well in the interim, and welcome back to COT-land! Good luck this week.

COT Schedule Back on Track on Friday

Apologies for the lack of a post or Commitments of Traders update this past weekend.

As previously mentioned, the COT reports were suspended during the U.S. government shutdown, and the missing weeks of COT data are still not fully reported on the website of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The CFTC says in this announcement it expects to catch up to its usual weekly report schedule by the end of this week.

So I should be able to return to my usual COT updates after this Friday afternoon's COT data release.

Thanks for your patience. I'll see you back here after Friday.

CFTC: Your COT Data is Still Incomplete! Please Advise

The U.S. government shutdown may have been over for a week, but the Commodity Futures Trading Commission still hasn't reported in full its weekly Commitments of Traders data since the shutdown started.

That means the data for the recent period is pretty much useless for analysis and transparency purposes.

This week, the CFTC inexplicably has posted not the current week's trader positioning - but instead, trader positioning from the week of Oct. 1. That was the first week of the shutdown.

No doubt trading firms still reported their positioning to the CFTC during the shutdown. So I would presume the data exists somewhere in the bowels of the CFTC.

Let the CFTC Know You Care

The question is, why isn't the CFTC disclosing it?

Will the CFTC do so? If so, when? If not, why not?

No word on any of this on the CFTC's website.

I have written to the CFTC at marketreports@cftc.gov to ask what's going on.

And if you care about this data, please do so too and encourage the CFTC to promptly report the missing data.

Until the remaining data is disclosed, I'll have to continue avoiding updating my signals. Or I can wait until the moving average periods for my setups run out and then start trading with the data again.

But even if I do that, any historic analysis or backtesting of trading signals will be severely impaired if the missing data isn't eventually filled in. I hope the CFTC finds the time to do so!

UPDATE (Oct. 28): Just hear back from the CFTC. They are pledging to release the missing data over the next couple of weeks in an updated COT release schedule available here.

CFTC, Please Fill In Missing COT Data!

The U.S. government shutdown may be over, but the Commitments of Traders data still hasn't been updated for the current week or previous weeks since the shutdown started.

I'll be checking the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission website this weekend to see if any new data is posted.

The site currently gives "10/18/13" as the current report date. But the actual data is still the same as what's been there during the shutdown, which is the Sept. 24, 2013, COT report. The historic dataset on the site hasn't been updated either with any new data.

Missing Data Causes Statistical Issues

I'm hoping someone at the CFTC has the sense to fill in the missing weeks, instead of simply restarting with the data from here on.

Missing several weeks of numbers in a dataset like this causes huge problems for any proper statistical analysis.

Do you exclude the missing weeks of data and price changes? Do you fill them in with your own made-up "transitional" data? There's no good solution I can think of.

Thanks a lot, Tea Party!

Shutdown's Latest Victim: Commitments Data

Another victim of the U.S. government shutdown: your beloved COTs Timer trading system.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Friday failed to publish its weekly Commitments of Traders data on trader positioning. That means I don't have the data I need to update my signals for trading.

It means a few changes on my latest signals table. My signal for the Nasdaq-100 was bearish, but I will put it in cash due to the lack of data.

My signal for the S&P 500 is currently bullish, but the trade delay for that one is two weeks. So I will keep that one bullish for another two weeks because any new signal from data on Friday would have taken effect only in two weeks.

Meanwhile, my natural gas signal was going to cash next week anyway due to prior changes in trader positioning.

Please tune back in here for updates on the shutdown as it may affect the Commitments of Traders data.

Good luck next week and in the coming weeks to all.