| Small Trader Index (Sometimes known as the Small Trader COT Index)
| -----------------------------------------------------
|
| 1) NET SMALL TRADER INDEX. Net Index for Speculator Traders
|
| A summary of the weekly number of Long & Short contracts (that
| exceed reportable limits) that are held by Small Traders
| each week is issued every two weeks by the CFTC. Small Trader
| contract quantities are derived from calculating the sum of
| commercial & speculator contracts subtracted from the total.
|
| For each commodity and weekly status a NET Value is calculated
| by subtracting the number of reported Short positions from the Long.
| i.e. NET = LONG minus SHORT positions.
| (e.g. 5000 long minus 4000 Short gives a NET of 1000 positions)
|
| Over a given period (of weeks) the Index (NDX) is calculated by
| assigning an index value of 100 to the MAXIMUM NET position and
| assigning an index value of zero to the MINIMUM NET position.
| Pro-rata index values are assigned to IN-BETWEEN NET positions.
|
| There may be an increased probability of a price trend reversal
| at the zero or 100 value given a sufficient calculation span.
|
| This Index is displayed as a line joining weekly index values
| with a scale of 0-100 to the left of the graph
| ________________________________________________________________________
|
| 2) SPAN (Weeks).
| The number of weeks over which the Net Index is calculated.
|
| If this span of time is too short, extreme index values of zero
| or 100 will occur frequently and have little significance .
| If the span is too long then the extreme index values will seldom
| occur. Some experts believe that a minimm 18 mos (78 weeks) will
| result in a significant net index value. The data provided
| calculates a net index of 78 weeks (or less if there is
| insufficient data.)
| Note that the SPAN data is provided for each Commodity
| on the first WWW page where the Commodity selection is made.
|
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|
| WEEKS Weeks from last January 01
| FR LAST This provides a convenient way to express dates on the
| JAN 01 graphical representation (if provided for the specific
| commodity). JAN 01 of the current year is zero.
| JAN 28 is 4 weeks later and is 4
| DEC 01 of the previos year is
| 4 weeks earlier and is -4
| etc.
|
| The relationship between this date format and the dd/mm/yy
| format is shown in the previous report.
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|
| Use the Browser BACK Command to return to the Graph
| ________________________________________________________________________
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