Composite Sample Issue

The tables included in this report provide a breakdown of each Tuesday's open interest for markets in which five or more traders hold positions equal to or above the reporting levels established by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The tables show open interest separately by reportable and nonreportable positions. For reportable positions, additional data is provided on commercial and noncommercial holdings, spreading, and numbers of traders.

Open Interest–A futures contract is said to be open when it has been entered into and not yet liquidated by an offsetting transaction or fulfilled by delivery. Contracts that are open are referred to as Open Interest. The aggregate of all long open interest is equal to the aggregate of all short open interest.

Open interest as reported to the Commission and as used in this table does not include open futures contracts against which notices of deliveries have been stopped by a trader or issued by the clearing organization of an exchange. Open interest held or controlled by a trader is referred to as that trader's futures position.

Reportable Positions–Clearing members, FCMs and foreign brokers are required to make daily reports to the Commission showing each trader's positions on their books that, in any future month of a commodity, exceed the reporting level as shown below. Open interest figures show the aggregate positions reported by all clearing members, FCMs and foreign brokers. Positions of individual traders are classified either as noncommercial or commercial. All of a trader's reported futures positions in a commodity are classified as commercial if the trader uses futures contracts traded in the particular commodity for hedging as defined in the Commission's regulations.

Nonreportable Positions–Traders' positions that are below the reporting levels are classified as nonreportable. The aggregate long and short open interest shown as nonreportable positions are derived by subtracting reported positions from the total open interest. Accordingly, for nonreportable positions, the number of traders involved and the commercial/noncommercial classification of each trader are unknown.

Spreading–Spreading includes each trader's reported long and short positions in the same market to the extent they are balanced without regard to which crop year/calendar year is involved.

Percentages of Open Interest; Numbers of Traders–In determining the total number of traders, a trader's long and/or short position is counted only once regardless if the trader appears in more than one category (noncommercial long or short only, noncommercial spreading, and commercial). In determining the number of traders in each category, a trader is counted as a long and/or short for each category in which the trader holds a position.

Basic data provided by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Computations and illustration of data by Consensus,Inc.
 

Copyright 2001 by Consensus, Inc.

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