Positioning

Soybean meal

Small speculators
21,949
Large speculators
222,657
Commercials
-244,606
Open interest
632,133

Week ending 2026-10-06. Speculators are net long, and the trade is being taken by commercials.Large speculators, week on week:6,176 contracts

Large speculators are holding their largest net long position in Soybean meal in three years. That is crowding, not a forecast: a crowded position can stay crowded, and it says nothing about which way the price goes next.

-300,000-200,000-100,0000100,000200,000300,00006/30/8606/29/9306/27/0006/26/0706/24/1406/29/21
Small speculatorsLarge speculatorsCommercials
Soybean meal, 1986-06-30 to 2026-10-06, shown twice a year, the last report of each half. 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.