S&P 500 COT Positioning
How large traders are positioned in S&P 500 futures, straight from the weekly CFTC Commitments of Traders report. Updated within minutes of every Friday release.
What the positioning says
Leveraged funds are net short 317,564 contracts and added to that short position over the past week. That leaves positioning at the 70th percentile of its 52-week range — approaching the stretched end, though not yet at an extreme.
WAVG reads this the same way every week across every market, names the factors behind the bias, and flags when positioning reaches an extreme that has historically preceded a turn.
What moves S&P 500 positioning
The E-mini S&P 500 uses the financial report: asset managers (institutional "real money", structurally long as a benchmark), leveraged funds (hedge funds running tactical and relative-value trades), and dealers (banks). A key nuance: leveraged funds are often net short the futures as the hedge leg of a cash-futures basis trade — so a large short is not always outright bearish.
Positioning shifts with the Fed, the earnings outlook, and broad risk sentiment. Because asset managers anchor the long side, the more informative signal is usually the week-over-week change and how stretched leveraged funds are relative to their own range.
This week's report
| Trader group | Long | Short | Net |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leveraged funds | 165,311 | 482,875 | −317,564 |
| Asset managers | 1,156,793 | 222,613 | +934,180 |
| Dealers | 201,959 | 922,706 | −720,747 |
Contracts held long, short and net as of Sep 1, 2026 (published Sep 4, 2026). Source: CFTC.
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