Crude Oil (WTI) COT Report

The Commitment of Traders (COT) report shows how the largest traders are positioned in Crude Oil (WTI) futures each week. The CFTC splits open interest into speculators (managed money) and commercial hedgers, so you can see who is leaning which way. Tracking when Crude Oil (WTI) speculative positioning reaches an extreme, and how speculators line up against commercials, is one of the most widely followed sentiment tools in futures.

What drives Crude Oil (WTI) positioning

In energy, commercials are producers, refiners and merchants hedging output and crack spreads, while speculators chase momentum. Crowded speculative extremes in Crude Oil (WTI) frequently coincide with exhaustion in the prevailing move. WTI crude positioning is driven by OPEC+ policy, US shale output, weekly inventories and global demand. The commercials are producers and refiners hedging barrels and crack spreads, while managed money chases the macro and momentum.

How to read the Crude Oil (WTI) COT report

Read Crude Oil (WTI) through the 52-week z-score, which measures how stretched speculative positioning is against the past year of producer and fund flows: strongly positive is crowded long, deeply negative is crowded short. Energy extremes frequently coincide with turns in the underlying move, and the positioning regime separates a healthy trend from a stretched one. Crude speculative longs often peak near price highs, so cross-check a high z-score against inventories and the prompt-month spread. New here? Begin with how to read the COT report.

COTInsight scores Crude Oil (WTI) on nine analytical layers every week, the moment the CFTC data lands: the 52-week z-score, the 3-year COT Index, regime classification, price-versus-positioning divergence, open-interest trend and more, with up to ten years of history so you can see how today compares to every prior extreme.

Crude Oil (WTI) positioning and EIA inventories

Positioning tells you who is leaning which way. It does not tell you whether the physical market agrees. COTInsight Ultimate reads Crude Oil (WTI) positioning against the weekly EIA petroleum status report, so an extreme in Managed Money can be checked against commercial crude stocks, Cushing inventories, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, domestic production and refinery utilisation in the same view.

The read matters most when the two disagree. Speculators building length into a stock build is a very different setup from the same length building into a draw, and the seasonal band shows whether a given inventory level is genuinely tight or simply normal for the time of year. See how the Crude Radar combines the two and what positioning versus inventories looks like in practice.

Crude Oil (WTI) COT report FAQ

Which CFTC report covers Crude Oil (WTI)?

Crude Oil (WTI) positioning comes from the CFTC Disaggregated Commitments of Traders report, which splits Crude Oil (WTI) open interest into Producer/Merchant/Processor/User and Swap Dealer hedgers on one side and Managed Money and Other Reportables on the other. COTInsight reads it directly from the CFTC every week.

When is the Crude Oil (WTI) COT report updated?

The CFTC releases the Commitments of Traders report every Friday at 3:30pm ET, reflecting positions as of the prior Tuesday. COTInsight recomputes the Crude Oil (WTI) z-score, COT Index and regime the moment the data lands.

Is Crude Oil (WTI) COT positioning bullish or bearish right now?

The COT report is a positioning and sentiment gauge, not a direct buy or sell signal: it shows whether speculators are crowded long or short in Crude Oil (WTI). COTInsight scores this week's Crude Oil (WTI) reading on a 52-week z-score, a 3-year COT Index and a positioning regime. Start a free 7-day trial to see the current reading.

Learn more

• COT for crude oil traders
• How to read the COT report
• COT z-score explained
• COT regime detection
• All COT market pages