VIX futures COT positioning
How this is computed
The CFTC publishes the Commitments of Traders report every Friday for positions held the prior Tuesday. This page reads the legacy report, futures only, for the contract the CFTC lists as VIX FUTURES - CBOE FUTURES EXCHANGE (code 1170E1). Method: how to read this page.
In the CFTC Commitments of Traders report for positions as of Tuesday, November 3, 2026, large speculators (non-commercial traders) in VIX futures were net short 76,916 contracts, 20.7% of open interest, and their net position changed by +550 contracts from the week of October 27, 2026.
Kresmion computes each trader group's net position (long minus short) and its change from the prior week, the speculator share of open interest, the 3-year z-score and the 3-year COT index from the positions the CFTC reports; they describe positioning, not a forecast.
Positions by trader groupcontracts, week of 2026-11-03
| Group | Net | Change | Long | Short |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Large speculators non-commercial; net short, 20.7% of open interest | -76,916 | +550 | 90,757 | 167,673 |
| Commercials hedgers | +77,424 | -1,625 | 183,438 | 106,014 |
| Small traders nonreportable | -508 | +1,075 | 23,778 | 24,286 |
Speculators against their own three-year rangestored values, CFTC data
- Net, share of open interest
- -20.7%
- 3-year z-score
- -1.29 sigma
- 3-year COT index (0 to 100)
- 21
Last 52 weeks52 weekly reports, newest first; 172 on file
| Week of | Spec net | Change | % of OI | Commercial net | Open interest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-11-03 | -76,916 | +550 | -20.7% | +77,424 | 371,222 |
| 2026-10-27 | -77,466 | +19,043 | -20.5% | +79,049 | 378,372 |
| 2026-10-20 | -96,509 | -54 | -22.2% | +98,577 | 433,778 |
| 2026-10-13 | -96,455 | -5,161 | -21.5% | +93,174 | 448,469 |
| 2026-10-06 | -91,294 | -11,684 | -20.7% | +90,598 | 441,261 |
| 2026-09-29 | -79,610 | -330 | -18.9% | +77,929 | 421,113 |
| 2026-09-22 | -79,280 | +7,305 | -19.2% | +77,121 | 412,323 |
| 2026-09-15 | -86,585 | +8,244 | -19.4% | +81,991 | 446,060 |
| 2026-09-08 | -94,829 | -10,644 | -22.0% | +90,200 | 431,671 |
| 2026-09-01 | -84,185 | -6,021 | -20.5% | +79,343 | 410,574 |
| 2026-08-25 | -78,164 | +11,282 | -20.6% | +78,580 | 378,681 |
| 2026-08-18 | -89,446 | -14,512 | -21.4% | +89,322 | 417,768 |
| 2026-08-11 | -74,934 | -13,825 | -19.6% | +77,297 | 382,010 |
| 2026-08-04 | -61,109 | +2,304 | -16.5% | +65,590 | 369,655 |
| 2026-07-28 | -63,413 | +13,448 | -18.5% | +67,389 | 343,094 |
| 2026-07-21 | -76,861 | -11,078 | -19.4% | +75,398 | 396,485 |
| 2026-07-14 | -65,783 | -1,659 | -16.9% | +67,107 | 389,088 |
| 2026-07-07 | -64,124 | -5,638 | -17.2% | +67,525 | 372,859 |
| 2026-06-30 | -58,486 | +8,288 | -16.5% | +60,706 | 354,497 |
| 2026-06-23 | -66,774 | -35 | -18.9% | +68,843 | 353,236 |
| 2026-06-16 | -66,739 | +7,681 | -16.3% | +66,257 | 408,302 |
| 2026-06-09 | -74,420 | -4,468 | -18.1% | +72,459 | 410,407 |
| 2026-06-02 | -69,952 | -15,468 | -17.0% | +72,673 | 410,614 |
| 2026-05-26 | -54,484 | +1,285 | -14.2% | +57,230 | 384,562 |
| 2026-05-19 | -55,769 | -6,808 | -12.7% | +53,251 | 440,161 |
| 2026-05-12 | -48,961 | -24,278 | -12.1% | +49,054 | 403,191 |
| 2026-05-05 | -24,683 | +3,159 | -6.4% | +26,484 | 387,090 |
| 2026-04-28 | -27,842 | -580 | -7.7% | +28,374 | 362,343 |
| 2026-04-21 | -27,262 | -2,958 | -8.1% | +28,247 | 338,391 |
| 2026-04-14 | -24,304 | -3,916 | -6.7% | +23,022 | 365,168 |
| 2026-04-07 | -20,388 | +10,770 | -5.9% | +22,566 | 346,605 |
| 2026-03-31 | -31,158 | -6,183 | -8.9% | +33,971 | 348,816 |
| 2026-03-24 | -24,975 | +21,426 | -7.3% | +21,958 | 342,684 |
| 2026-03-17 | -46,401 | -3,566 | -11.9% | +42,662 | 390,595 |
| 2026-03-10 | -42,835 | +12,908 | -11.0% | +42,293 | 388,129 |
| 2026-03-03 | -55,743 | -880 | -14.3% | +59,878 | 390,306 |
| 2026-02-24 | -54,863 | +16,954 | -15.3% | +59,614 | 359,373 |
| 2026-02-17 | -71,817 | -6,729 | -19.2% | +73,092 | 373,919 |
| 2026-02-10 | -65,088 | +15,547 | -17.5% | +65,737 | 371,911 |
| 2026-02-03 | -80,635 | -5,649 | -22.1% | +79,709 | 364,584 |
| 2026-01-27 | -74,986 | +14,237 | -20.7% | +69,887 | 362,402 |
| 2026-01-20 | -89,223 | +3,140 | -22.4% | +89,327 | 397,483 |
| 2026-01-13 | -92,363 | -4,113 | -22.9% | +89,774 | 404,046 |
| 2026-01-06 | -88,250 | +2,153 | -21.6% | +86,131 | 408,257 |
| 2025-12-30 | -90,403 | -9,168 | -22.5% | +90,370 | 401,915 |
| 2025-12-23 | -81,235 | -6,743 | -21.5% | +82,381 | 378,125 |
| 2025-12-16 | -74,492 | +1,019 | -18.3% | +75,996 | 407,195 |
| 2025-12-09 | -75,511 | -11,683 | -18.5% | +74,825 | 408,744 |
| 2025-12-02 | -63,828 | -9,154 | -15.1% | +65,877 | 423,342 |
| 2025-11-25 | -54,674 | +25,333 | -13.2% | +54,103 | 415,610 |
| 2025-11-18 | -80,007 | -2,985 | -16.8% | +85,120 | 476,717 |
| 2025-11-10 | -77,022 | +8,610 | -17.7% | +79,106 | 435,756 |
How to read this page
The CFTC publishes the Commitments of Traders report every Friday, covering positions as of the prior Tuesday, so every figure here is lagged by a few days. Large speculators are the non-commercial traders (funds); commercials are hedgers (producers and users of the underlying); small traders are the nonreportable accounts below the CFTC reporting levels. Net is long minus short; change is the net against the prior weekly report. Spread positions are not part of any net shown here.
The 3-year z-score is the current speculator net share of open interest, minus its trailing three-year mean, divided by its trailing three-year standard deviation, with the current week left out of its own baseline. The 3-year COT index rescales the speculator net to 0 at its three-year low and 100 at its three-year high. Both describe how crowded positioning is against its own past three years; they are not a forecast, and this page makes no directional call. A blank reading means the contract does not have three years on file yet.
Source: CFTC Commitments of Traders. Explainer: what COT net-long positioning means. All 20 contracts: CFTC COT positioning.
Cite this data
Kresmion computes each trader group's net position (long minus short) and its change from the prior week, the speculator share of open interest, the 3-year z-score and the 3-year COT index from the positions the CFTC reports; they describe positioning, not a forecast.
Upstream: CFTC Commitments of Traders
Kresmion, "VIX futures COT positioning, CFTC Commitments of Traders", data as of 2026-11-03, https://kresmion.com/tools/cot-positioning/vix. Upstream data: CFTC Commitments of Traders.
Link to this data (HTML):
<a href="https://kresmion.com/tools/cot-positioning/vix">VIX futures COT positioning, CFTC Commitments of Traders (Kresmion)</a>
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