Natural Gas COT Report
The Commitment of Traders (COT) report shows how the largest traders are positioned in Natural Gas 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 Natural Gas 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 Natural Gas positioning
In energy, commercials are producers, refiners and merchants hedging output and crack spreads, while speculators chase momentum. Crowded speculative extremes in Natural Gas frequently coincide with exhaustion in the prevailing move. Natural gas is the most weather-driven energy market, with positioning swinging on heating and cooling demand, storage injections and draws, LNG export demand and production.
How to read the Natural Gas COT report
Read Natural Gas 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. Gas positioning moves hard around seasonal weather and the weekly storage report, so always read an extreme in the context of the season. New here? Begin with how to read the COT report.
COTInsight scores Natural Gas 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.
Natural Gas COT report FAQ
Which CFTC report covers Natural Gas?
Natural Gas positioning comes from the CFTC Disaggregated Commitments of Traders report, which splits Natural Gas 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 Natural Gas 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 Natural Gas z-score, COT Index and regime the moment the data lands.
Is Natural Gas 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 Natural Gas. COTInsight scores this week's Natural Gas 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.
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