Positioning

Hard red winter wheat

Small speculators
-575
Large speculators
19,070
Commercials
-18,495
Open interest
312,096

Week ending 2026-10-06. Speculators are net long, and the trade is being taken by commercials.Large speculators, week on week:1,894 contracts

-100,000-75,000-50,000-25,000025,00050,00075,000100,00003/31/9803/25/0303/25/0803/26/1303/27/1803/28/23
Small speculatorsLarge speculatorsCommercials
Hard red winter wheat, 1998-03-31 to 2026-10-06, shown quarterly, the last report of each quarter. 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.