Positioning

British pound

Small speculators
-14,256
Large speculators
-97,611
Commercials
111,867
Open interest
265,890

Week ending 2026-10-06. Speculators are net short, and commercials are on the other side.Large speculators, week on week:6,536 contracts

-150,000-100,000-50,000050,000100,000150,00010/26/2109/27/2208/29/2307/30/2406/24/2505/26/26
Small speculatorsLarge speculatorsCommercials
British pound, 2021-10-26 to 2026-10-06, shown monthly, the last report of each month. Net contracts held, long minus short. Source: CFTC Commitments of Traders.

Reading this chart

Commercials are the companies with a reason to be in the market anyway: a miner selling forward, an airline buying fuel, a bank hedging a book of stock. Large speculators are the funds. Small speculators are everybody too small to have to report.

The three sum to zero every week, so when one group leans hard, some other group is holding the opposite side. A large speculator net short in stock index futures is often a hedge against shares held elsewhere, not a bet the market falls.

Others in this group

Each inside its own three year range, highest first.

Source: Commitments of Traders, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Figures are contracts held, not dollars.