cotreport*

COT SCHOOL · GUIDE 06 · 4 MIN

How we grade ourselves (bars, gates and live files)

Anyone can claim their tool works. We built the grading system so the claim is checkable: every extreme opens a live file that trades in public under one frozen rule.

The rule and the bar

Entry is blind: the first session open after the report that marked the extreme, fading the crowd, no filters, no discretion. The bar is the finish line: a move too big to be that market’s normal weekly noise, scaled to the file’s age. Young files need less than old ones.

Gates, not vibes

Grades land only at five fixed checkpoints: weeks 1, 2, 4, 8 and 13, confirmed by Friday’s pipeline. Over the bar at a checkpoint reads OVER THE BAR, and that grade is history: it sticks. If the live mark later slips back, the chip says NOW UNDER next to it. The window closes at week 13 whether the file won or lost, because the exit is the clock, not a choice. No stops either: a stop would smuggle discretion and survivorship back into the record.

The honest caveats, printed

Marks are close-to-close on a continuous front-month price file, so contract-roll gaps are part of every number until our per-contract data upgrade lands. Each file shows the two closes behind its headline percentage, so you can check the arithmetic yourself. Win or lose, files stay on the record forever: the backtest is just the ones whose windows closed.

NEXT DROP · FRIDAY 21:30 CET

The Friday Letter

Every Friday 21:30 CET the new report lands and we regrade all 1,206 cases overnight. Confirm and your crowd-map snapshot arrives right away. Then every Friday: what moved, where the crowd is stretched, and which fades are running in public. And the moment we open one, you get the ping. Free.

Every Friday: where the crowd is stretched, what is running, what it cost. Free.

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educational content · statistics, not advice · not affiliated with the CFTC · every number referenced here is published with its method on the methodology page