GBP COT report: pound futures positioning

By Forexuro Desk · Updated 31 October 2026, 05:00 UK time

Reviewed by the Forexuro Desk editorial team · Last reviewed 27 October 2026 · Educational content, not financial advice

In the week to Tuesday 27 October 2026, non-commercial traders in British pound futures (CME) were net short 79,414 contracts, a short position 1,006 contracts smaller than a week earlier. That reading sits in the 8th percentile of the past 3 years, with a 3-year COT index of 11 out of 100.

The report was published by the CFTC on Friday 30 October 2026 at 15:30 Eastern Time (19:30 UK time), as it is most weeks, and reflects positions at the close of trading on Tuesday. Leveraged funds were net long 17,195 contracts and asset managers net short 128,893. At the GBP/USD rate on the report date, the non-commercial net position is worth about $6.6bn in notional terms.

GBP COT chart: 3 years of positioning

• Non-commercial net long
• Non-commercial net short
• Leveraged funds net
• Asset managers net
• COT index (shaded: 90 to 100 and 0 to 10)
• GBP/USD

Sterling futures positioning tends to swing harder than the euro's, because the contract is smaller and speculative money is a larger share of it. Bank of England decisions, UK inflation and wage data, and UK fiscal news (Budgets, gilt market stress) have historically driven the biggest shifts. For UK traders this is the most direct read on how US-regulated futures traders are positioned on the pound.

What extreme GBP positioning meant in the past

We looked at every week since 24 December 2012 (the first week with 3 full years of history before it) and marked the start of each episode when the non-commercial COT index reached 90 or more, or 10 or less, after at least 4 weeks outside that zone. For each start we record where the COT index stood and what the pound did against the dollar over the next 13 weeks. This is a description of the past, not a forecast.

COT index 90 or more (extreme long): 11 episodes since 24 December 2012, lasting a median of 3 weeks. Thirteen weeks after the start, the COT index had a median of 79. The pound rose against the dollar over those 13 weeks in 5 of 11 cases, with a median change of -0.1%.

COT index 10 or less (extreme short): 10 episodes since 24 December 2012, lasting a median of 4 weeks. Thirteen weeks after the start, the COT index had a median of 24. The pound rose against the dollar over those 13 weeks in 7 of 9 cases, with a median change of +1.3%.

For comparison, across all 710 weeks in the same period, the pound rose against the dollar over the following 13 weeks 51% of the time, with a median change of +0.2%. With this few episodes, a difference of one or two cases changes the picture, so treat these numbers as context rather than an edge.

Over the last 3 years (156 weeks, Tuesday to Tuesday), the correlation between the weekly change in the non-commercial net position and the weekly change in the pound against the dollar was +0.30. Positioning and price tended to move together in the same week, which is why many analysts treat COT data as a record of what traders did rather than a lead indicator.

GBP COT data: the last 52 weeks

GBP/USD is the Federal Reserve H.10 noon buying rate in New York on the report Tuesday (or the business day before), The Fed publishes these rates with about a week's delay, so the latest week can show n/a until the next update.

How to read the GBP COT report

One contract is contracts of gbp 62,500. The CFTC publishes the British pound futures (CME) figures in several reports. The Legacy report splits traders into non-commercial (mostly speculators such as funds), commercial (hedgers) and non-reportable (smaller traders below the reporting threshold). The Traders in Financial Futures report splits it into dealers (mostly banks), asset managers (pension funds, insurers and mutual funds) and leveraged funds (hedge funds and CTAs). A net position is longs minus shorts. Spread positions, held long and short at the same time, are left out of the net figure.

The COT index places this week's non-commercial net position inside its own range over the last 156 weeks: 0 is the most short (or least long) of the 3 years and 100 the most long. The percentile is the share of the other weeks in the window with a lower net position. We flag readings of 90 or more as extreme long and 10 or less as extreme short. Neither number says where the price will go: they show how crowded positioning is compared with its own history.

Related GBP/USD pages

• GBP/USD pair guide
• GBP/USD forecast this week
• GBP/USD signal results
• COT report for all forex markets and gold, latest week
• Other markets: EUR COT, JPY COT, AUD COT, NZD COT, CAD COT, CHF COT, Gold COT, USD Index COT

For the trade ideas themselves, Forexuro posts forex signals with every closed trade in the trade history, and daily notes in the free Telegram channel.

Download the data and sources

The full weekly series from 5 January 2010 to 27 October 2026 (878 reports) is free to download as gbp.csv. CFTC data is a work of the US government and in the public domain; please cite the CFTC as the source.

Official sources

• CFTC: Commitments of Traders (release schedule and explanatory notes)
• CFTC Public Reporting Environment: Legacy Futures Only and Traders in Financial Futures datasets
• FRED: DEXUSUK (Federal Reserve H.10 exchange rates)

Trading carries a high risk of loss. Not FCA-regulated. Not financial advice. Risk disclosure

Education only, not financial advice. Trading forex, gold and CFDs carries a high risk of losing money, and leverage magnifies both gains and losses. Past positioning and past price moves are not a reliable guide to future results. Read our risk disclosure.