Barchart Commitment of Traders positions lists the reported open interest as provided by the CFTC. The reports are updated on Friday afternoon as of the previous Tuesday, which is the effective date of the report. The report provides the number of open contracts per reporting classification, along with the change from the previous report.

For example if Commercial Traders are showing 830,435 long contracts and 535,232 short contracts, this means that more commercial traders are long the market than short the market. The change signifies if the traders are adding to their positions or subtracting.

Commercial Traders represent companies and institutions who use the futures market to offset risk in the cash or spot market, such as a Corn producer who may short corn futures contracts to protect profits if prices fall in the near term. As large cash merchants in the business, Commercials typically maintain their own intelligence-gathering networks and analysis. In fact, in some markets (such as softs, grains, and meats), commercial trade houses are the primary source of fundamental supply-and-demand statistics available to the trading public.

Non-Commercial Traders includes large institutional investors, hedge funds and other entities that are trading in the futures market for investment and growth. They are typically not involved directly in the production, distribution or management of the underlying commodities or assets.

Other Reporting Traders is the catch-all category for traders too small to be required to report their positions to the CFTC. Individual traders will fall into this category.

Producer/Merchant/Processor/User predominantly engages in the production, processing, packing or handling of a physical commodity and uses the futures markets to manage or hedge risks associated with those activities. For example they may sell futures to lock in a price for it, or if they need a commodity in their business process, they may buy futures to lock in a price on that commodity for when they will need it down the road. Producers are typically considered Commercial Traders.

Swap Dealers primarily use the futures market to hedge risk. A swap dealer is an entity that deals primarily in swaps for a commodity and uses the futures markets to manage or hedge the risk associated with those swap transactions. The swap dealer’s counter-parties may be speculative traders, like hedge funds, or traditional commercial clients that are managing risk arising from their dealings in the physical commodity. Firms and financial institutions dominate the swaps market. Swap Dealers are typically considered Commercial Traders.

Managed Money or Money Manager is a registered commodity trading advisor (CTA); a registered commodity pool operator (CPO); or an unregistered fund. These traders are engaged in managing and conducting organized futures trading on behalf of clients. Managed Money speculates on the markets for profit.

Every other reportable trader that is not placed into one of the other three categories is placed into the Other Reportables category. Individual traders will fall here.

The TFF report divides the financial futures market participants into the "sell-side" and "buy-side." This traditional functional division of financial market participants focuses on their respective roles in the broader marketplace, not whether they are buyers or sellers of futures/option contracts. The category called "dealer/intermediary," for instance, represents sell-side participants. Typically, these are dealers and intermediaries that earn commissions on selling financial products, capturing bid/offer spreads and otherwise accommodating clients. The remaining three categories ("asset manager/institutional;" "leveraged funds;" and "other reportables") represent the buy-side participants. These are essentially clients of the sell-side participants who use the markets to invest, hedge, manage risk, speculate or change the term structure or duration of their assets.

Dealer/Intermediary. These participants represent what are typically described as the sell-side of the market. Though they may not predominately sell futures, they do design and sell various financial assets to clients. They tend to have matched books, or offset their risk across markets and clients. Futures contracts are part of the pricing and balancing of risk associated with the products they sell and their activities. These include large banks (U.S. and non-U.S.) and dealers in securities, swaps and other derivatives.

Asset Manager/Institutional. These are institutional investors, including pension funds, endowments, insurance companies, mutual funds and those portfolio/investment managers whose clients are predominantly institutional.

Leveraged Funds. These are typically hedge funds and various types of money managers, including registered commodity trading advisors (CTAs); registered commodity pool operators (CPOs) or unregistered funds. The strategies may involve taking outright positions or arbitrage within and across markets. The traders may be engaged in managing and conducting proprietary futures trading and trading on behalf of speculative clients.

Other Reportables. Every other reportable trader that is not placed into one of the other three categories is placed into the other reportables category. Individual traders will fall here.