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In forceMarket surveillanceLast checked 13 November 2026

Large trader position reports (Part 17)

A regulatory return listed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), United States.

A daily feed of every trader's futures and options positions once those positions reach a Commission-set reporting level, so Commission staff can see who holds large positions in each market, aggregate related accounts, and support market surveillance and the enforcement of federal speculative position limits. Source

Official title: Reports by Reporting Markets, Futures Commission Merchants, Clearing Members, and Foreign Brokers

The facts

Who files
Clearing members, futures commission merchants, foreign brokers and certain reporting markets (collectively, reporting firms) file the reports; an individual trader does not file this one directly. If, at the daily market close, a reporting firm has a trader with a reportable position, it reports that trader's entire position in every futures and options expiration month in that commodity, regardless of size. Source
How often
Daily, for each business day's close. Source
Deadline
Reports must reach the Commission or its designee not later than 9:00 a.m. local market time on the business day after the report date (eastern time for markets in that time zone, central time for others). Reporting firms may treat Saturday as a non-business day and submit the Friday and Saturday data together on the following Monday. Source
Format
XML. Filed as FIXML (Financial Information eXchange Markup Language) position reports, consolidated into one XML file per submission and sent over secure FTP; a legacy 80-byte flat-file format is also described for filers still using it. Source
How it is filed
Filing routes recorded for the CFTC: CFTC Portal; WinJammer; NFA EasyFile (Form PQR and Form PR). See how firms file with the CFTC.
Status
In force
Legal basis
Group
Market surveillance

Templates (0)

The library lists no templates for this return.

The report is a single position-record layout (over 40 data elements covering identifiers, contract terms, and long, short, EFP, EFS and EOO quantities), not a set of named schedules. Source

Validation rules

The CFTC publishes the checks it runs on this return. They could not be counted from the published material. They are written for people to read; software cannot run them as published. Source

How they are written: A published table of field-level validation rules in a PDF guidebook appendix, not a machine-executable ruleset..

The rules, on cftc.gov

How they were counted

Appendix B of the guidebook ('Data Validation Rules for Large Trader Position Report (LTPOS)') lists field-level checks; a total rule count was not tallied from the pages read.

Counts are in the CFTC's own unit, so they are not comparable with other regulators' counts.

Public data

Published only added up across firms. Individual positions are confidential by law. The Commission publishes the weekly Commitments of Traders (COT) report, an aggregate breakdown of open interest by trader category, built from this position data together with the business-purpose classification each trader gives on Form 40 (see the ownership and control reporting return). The COT report is released each Friday afternoon for positions as of the preceding Tuesday. Source

Where it is published (Static per-week report files, a compressed annual historical file, and a queryable public reporting environment)

  • Commitments of Traders (COT) reports

    Added up across firms · Static per-week report files, a compressed annual historical file, and a queryable public reporting environment

    Weekly breakdown of open interest by trader category for futures and options markets with 20 or more large traders, built from the Part 17 large trader position data and the business-purpose classification traders give on Form 40; released each Friday afternoon for positions as of the preceding Tuesday. Source

Official documents (1)

The CFTC's own files, with the size and SHA-256 fingerprint of each as downloaded on 13 November 2026, so anyone can tell whether a copy is the same version.

Sources

Every page and document this return's facts were read from.

Knowing exactly what is collected, in what format and under which rules is the first step to real-time supervision. Line4 builds SupTech software for financial regulators that runs checks like these as each return arrives.

Line4's own text, and the way Line4 has collected and arranged these records, are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0. Please credit: “Source: Line4 regulatory submissions library (CC BY 4.0), https://www.line4.ai”. The facts themselves belong to no one. The regulators' document titles, template names, quoted terms and documents belong to them and are not covered by this licence: see CFTC's reuse terms. This describes what regulators publish. It is not legal or regulatory advice: always rely on the regulator's own text. Not affiliated with or endorsed by any regulator.

Last checked 13 November 2026.