CFTC Commitments of Traders Scraper

Extract public CFTC Commitments of Traders (COT) report files into structured market positioning rows for trading research, risk monitoring, and analytics.

What does CFTC Commitments of Traders Scraper do?

CFTC Commitments of Traders Scraper downloads public text reports from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and converts each market row into a typed Apify dataset item.

It starts with the current disaggregated futures-only report and can also read the combined futures and options disaggregated report.

The actor is designed for recurring weekly COT workflows where analysts need clean rows instead of hand-parsing fixed public text files.

Who is it for?

• 📈 Commodity traders tracking producer, swap dealer, managed money, and non-reportable positioning.
• 🏦 Hedge fund research teams building weekly positioning dashboards.
• 🧮 Risk analysts monitoring open interest and concentration changes.
• 🧑‍💻 Data engineers feeding CFTC COT data into warehouses or notebooks.
• 📰 Market researchers who need repeatable source-backed COT extracts.

Why use this actor?

The CFTC publishes valuable files, but the rows are wide, comma-delimited, and inconvenient for downstream tools.

This actor normalizes the most important columns, preserves source provenance, and exports data in formats supported by Apify datasets.

Supported CFTC reports

• disaggregated_futures_only — current disaggregated futures-only report.
• disaggregated_combined — current disaggregated combined futures and options report.
• custom_url — direct CFTC text report URL for compatible files.

Data you can extract

Field group	Examples
Market identity	market name, report date, CFTC contract code, exchange, commodity code
Open interest	all open interest and weekly change
Producer/merchant	long, short, percent of open interest, trader counts
Swap dealer	long, short, spread
Managed money	long, short, spread
Other reportables	long and short positions
Non-reportables	long and short positions
Concentration	gross and net four-trader concentration fields
Provenance	contract units, source URL, row number, scrape timestamp

How much does it cost to scrape CFTC Commitments of Traders data?

The actor uses pay-per-event pricing.

There is a small start charge for each run and a per-row charge for each CFTC market row saved to the dataset.

The exact public pricing is shown on the Apify Store page and in the input sidebar before you run the actor.

Quick start

1. Open the actor on Apify.
2. Keep COT report type set to Disaggregated futures only.
3. Set Maximum rows to a small number for your first test.
4. Optionally enter a market filter such as WHEAT, CORN, GOLD, or CRUDE.
5. Start the run.
6. Export the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel, or via API.

Input options

COT report type

Choose the public CFTC report file to fetch.

Use the default when you want current disaggregated futures-only rows.

Custom CFTC report URL

Use this only when COT report type is custom_url.

The URL should point to a compatible CFTC comma-delimited text report.

Maximum rows

Limits the number of dataset items saved.

Use a low value for testing and a higher value for production refreshes.

Market name contains

Optional case-insensitive filter applied to the CFTC market name.

Examples:

• WHEAT
• CORN
• CRUDE
• GOLD
• EURO

Date filters

From report date and To report date use YYYY-MM-DD format.

They are useful when a custom report URL contains multiple report periods.

Include raw CFTC row array

Advanced option for audit workflows.

When enabled, the actor adds rawRow with the parsed source field array.

Example input

{
  "reportType": "disaggregated_futures_only",
  "marketNameFilter": "WHEAT",
  "maxRows": 25,
  "includeRawRow": false
}

Example output

{
  "marketName": "WHEAT-SRW - CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE",
  "reportDate": "2026-06-23",
  "cftcContractMarketCode": "001602",
  "exchange": "CBT",
  "openInterestAll": 428305,
  "producerMerchantLongAll": 61192,
  "producerMerchantShortAll": 83194,
  "managedMoneyLongAll": 68457,
  "managedMoneyShortAll": 138890,
  "contractUnits": "(CONTRACTS OF 5,000 BUSHELS)",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.cftc.gov/dea/newcot/f_disagg.txt"
}

Output fields

The default dataset contains one item per CFTC market row.

Important fields include:

• marketName
• reportDate
• openInterestAll
• producerMerchantLongAll
• producerMerchantShortAll
• swapDealerLongAll
• swapDealerShortAll
• managedMoneyLongAll
• managedMoneyShortAll
• totalReportableLongAll
• totalReportableShortAll
• nonReportableLongAll
• nonReportableShortAll
• contractUnits
• sourceUrl

Tips for best results

• Use a market filter for quick exploratory runs.
• Leave the filter blank to capture the full current weekly report.
• Schedule the actor weekly after the CFTC publishes fresh COT data.
• Keep includeRawRow disabled unless you need audit-level source mapping.
• Use dataset CSV export for spreadsheets and API export for automated pipelines.

Integrations

Use this actor with:

• Apify Schedules for weekly report refreshes.
• Google Sheets or Excel exports for analyst workbooks.
• BigQuery, Snowflake, or S3 integrations for warehouse loading.
• Webhooks to notify trading desks when new COT data is available.
• Python notebooks for futures positioning research.

API usage with Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/cftc-commitments-of-traders-scraper').call({
  reportType: 'disaggregated_futures_only',
  marketNameFilter: 'WHEAT',
  maxRows: 25
});
console.log(run.defaultDatasetId);

API usage with Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('APIFY_TOKEN')
run = client.actor('automation-lab/cftc-commitments-of-traders-scraper').call(run_input={
    'reportType': 'disaggregated_futures_only',
    'marketNameFilter': 'WHEAT',
    'maxRows': 25,
})
print(run['defaultDatasetId'])

API usage with cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~cftc-commitments-of-traders-scraper/runs?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"reportType":"disaggregated_futures_only","marketNameFilter":"WHEAT","maxRows":25}'

MCP integration

Use the Apify MCP server to run this actor from Claude Code, Claude Desktop, or other MCP clients.

MCP tool URL:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/cftc-commitments-of-traders-scraper

Claude Code setup:

$claude mcp add apify https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/cftc-commitments-of-traders-scraper

Claude Desktop JSON config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify-cftc-cot": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/cftc-commitments-of-traders-scraper"
    }
  }
}

Example prompts:

• "Run the CFTC COT scraper for WHEAT and summarize managed money positioning."
• "Fetch the latest disaggregated futures-only COT rows and show the largest open interest markets."
• "Create a weekly COT monitoring workflow for gold and crude oil."

Scheduling weekly COT monitoring

CFTC reports are recurring datasets.

Create an Apify schedule to run this actor weekly and send the dataset to your storage integration.

This avoids manual downloads and keeps your downstream dashboards current.

Data quality notes

The actor preserves CFTC source URLs and row numbers.

Numeric fields are parsed into numbers when possible.

Blank or dot values from the source are returned as null.

Legality

This actor extracts publicly available CFTC report files.

Users are responsible for following Apify terms, CFTC website terms, and any internal compliance requirements for data use.

FAQ

How often does CFTC COT data update?

CFTC COT reports are recurring public reports. Many teams schedule this actor weekly to refresh dashboards after the latest publication.

Does this actor require a login or API key for CFTC?

No. It reads public CFTC text report files and does not require a CFTC account.

Troubleshooting

Why did I get zero rows?

Check whether your market name filter is too narrow.

Try removing the filter or using a broad commodity word such as WHEAT.

Why are some numeric values null?

CFTC files sometimes use . or blank cells for unavailable values.

The actor converts those values to null rather than inventing a number.

Can I scrape historical files?

Use custom_url with a compatible public CFTC report URL.

Historical file layouts may vary, so keep includeRawRow on for audit runs when testing a new URL.

Related scrapers

Explore other Automation Lab actors at:

• https://apify.com/automation-lab

Changelog

Initial version parses public CFTC disaggregated COT text files into typed dataset rows.

Support

If a CFTC report URL changes or a field needs to be added, open an issue on the actor page with the run ID and example market row.