Open interest in soybean futures is at an all-time record and large commercial hedgers hold an enormous net short position. This we can sees in the Commitments of Traders Futures and Options combined report published on Friday by the Commodity Futures Traders Commission (CFTC). Commercial hold nearly 72,000 more shorts than long contracts. This is not too shy of their record of nearly 99,000 set during the 2004 bull run. (Commercials typically are counter-trend traders, and the higher prices go, the more they sell.

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Click the CoT Charts tab at the top of the page to view net positions charts. You will also find charts for the COT-Supplemental report, which is a subset of the Futures and Options report with commodity index traders broken out. (I wrote a long article on this trader group.) Unfortunately, this data is provided for only 12 agricultural markets.

Click the CoT Charts menu at the top of the page to view the new pie charts, which show the division of both long and short open interest between the 4 trader groups reported in the COT-Supplemental report. You will probably be surprised to see that the Commodity Index Trader is the new elephant in the ring–at least on the long side. I hope to add a new feature every week. Come back. Enjoy.