Copper: Commitments of Traders

CFTC positions as of the close on 13 October 2026. COPPER- #1 - COMMODITY EXCHANGE INC., contracts of 25,000 pounds.

Speculators net long68,388

Change on the week−1,195

Rank in 2 years82nd

Open interest328,963

This week

In the week to 13 October 2026, non-commercial traders in Copper held a net long position of 68,388 contracts. That is 1,195 contracts fewer than a week earlier. Commercial traders were net short 76,818, which is the other side of the same market. A year ago the speculative net was long 42,524, so it has moved by 25,864 contracts since. Longs were 73.7% of speculative positions. 297 traders reported.

Bar charts in detail

1. Who is long and who is short, in the week to 13 October 2026

Short positions extend to the left in red, long positions to the right in blue, each scaled against the biggest single side in this market. Percentages are of open interest.

Non-commercial (speculators) net +68,388

38,065 11.6% 106,453 32.4%

Commercial (producers, hedgers) net −76,818

185,243 56.3% 108,425 33.0%

Non-reportable (small traders) net +8,430

10,048 3.1% 18,478 5.6%

2. How the week's change was made

Change in each side since the previous report, as published by the CFTC. A rising net can come from longs being added, shorts being closed, or both; this shows which.

Non-commercial long −1,145

Non-commercial short +50

Commercial long +2,268

Commercial short +687

Open interest +10,155

3. Speculative net position, week by week

Last 52 weeks. Blue bars are net long, red bars net short. Hover a bar for the week and the value.

4. Weekly change in the speculative net

Blue bars: speculators added to their net position that week. Red bars: they reduced it. Tall bars of either colour are the unusual weeks.

5. Open interest, week by week

Total contracts outstanding. Rising open interest means money is entering the contract; falling means positions are being closed.

Where each group sits against its own year

0 means a group is at its most net short of the last 52 weeks, 100 at its most net long. It says where positioning is, not what price does next.

Commercials (producers, hedgers) the group classic COT analysis calls "smart money"

48 net −76,818 (−23.4% of OI)

Mid-range.

Speculators (funds, managed money) trend-following money with no commercial business in it

56 net +68,388 (+20.8% of OI)

Mid-range.

Small traders (non-reportable) the group classic analysis calls "dumb money"

3 net +8,430 (+2.6% of OI)

Near its most net short of the year.

Who holds what

Trader category	Long	Short	Net	Week change (long)
Non-commercial (speculators)	106,453	38,065	+68,388	−1,145
Commercial (producers, hedgers)	108,425	185,243	−76,818	+2,268
Non-reportable (small traders)	18,478	10,048	+8,430	–
Non-commercial spreading	95,606 on both sides		0	–

Spreading is a speculator holding an equal long and short in different months, so it nets to zero and is listed apart. The three net figures should sum to zero, because a futures market cannot be net long or net short overall, only differently distributed between the people in it. In the Commission's published figures they occasionally miss by a contract or two: for the week shown the three nets sum to 0. That is rounding in the source, not an error on this page, and we leave the CFTC's numbers as published rather than adjusting one to make the column balance.

The last two years

Speculative net position in Copper, Oct 2024 to Oct 2026. Above the line is net long, below it net short.

Week	Spec net	Change	Long share	Open interest
13 Oct 2026	+68,388	−1,195	73.7%	328,963
6 Oct 2026	+69,583	−15,980	73.9%	318,808
29 Sep 2026	+85,563	−4,656	76.5%	318,376
22 Sep 2026	+90,219	+15,066	77.3%	321,565
15 Sep 2026	+75,153	−16,760	74.1%	303,584
8 Sep 2026	+91,912	+11,388	78.0%	312,205
1 Sep 2026	+80,524	−3,796	75.6%	293,855
25 Aug 2026	+84,321	+4,808	77.4%	300,952
18 Aug 2026	+79,513	−989	78.2%	296,867
11 Aug 2026	+80,503	+3,080	77.3%	316,036
4 Aug 2026	+77,422	+8,925	75.7%	310,202
28 Jul 2026	+68,497	−6,325	74.9%	290,573
21 Jul 2026	+74,822	+9,193	76.3%	295,749
14 Jul 2026	+65,629	−263	74.7%	282,589
7 Jul 2026	+65,891	−248	75.9%	272,092
30 Jun 2026	+66,140	−6,871	75.7%	277,806

Across the 104 weeks held, the speculative net ranged from 1,087 to 91,912, averaging 42,123. This week's 68,388 sits at the 82nd percentile of that range. Two years is a short window, and a position that looks far from its recent average can stay there for months. It describes where positioning has been, not where price goes.

Related on StocksXray

S&P 500 companies that operate in this industry. Their share prices respond to far more than futures positioning, so this list is a starting point for research, not a link between the two.

Company	Price	1D
FCX Freeport-Mcmoran Inc	$69.54	−0.74%

What this report is, and what it is not

The CFTC requires anyone holding more than a set number of contracts in a US futures market to report their position. Every Friday afternoon the Commission publishes the totals as they stood at Tuesday's close, split by the kind of trader holding them. The gap between Tuesday and Friday is deliberate and cannot be shortened: the figures are always three days old when you first see them.

Non-commercial traders have no commercial use for the underlying. Commercial traders do: a miner selling forward, an airline hedging fuel, a mill buying wheat. Non-reportable is everybody below the reporting threshold. The categories describe why someone is registered, not how clever they are, and the common framing of commercials as "smart money" does not follow from the data: a producer hedging output sells into a rising market because that is their business, not because they predict a fall.

Nothing on this page is a signal. Positioning shows how crowded a trade was on a particular Tuesday. It does not say when a crowd disperses, and crowded positions have stayed crowded for many months at a time in most of these markets.

Other metals markets

Source: CFTC Commitments of Traders, legacy futures-only report, contract market code 085692. Net positions, long share and the two-year rank are our arithmetic on the Commission's published figures; every input is in the tables above. Educational only, not financial advice.