by Craig Hemke
Sprott Money
Once per week, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) requires that market participants submit data on their proprietary and customer positions. These surveys are then cobbled together as Commitment of Traders reports, and they are typically issued after the market close each Friday.
These reports are surveyed every Tuesday but are not always issued on Fridays. If a U.S. government holiday intervenes midweek, the reports will be delayed until Monday. So, at best, the data is already 74 hours stale when issued. At worst, it’s 98 hours stale. As such, the degree to which the reports are helpful is already limited.
But they’re all we have. Could the CFTC demand a survey every day and then crank out the data the next morning? In a perfect world, yes. But anything that has to do with a U.S. government agency does not fall within a “perfect world” category. Instead, we just take what we can get.