The question we kept getting after Friday's close was not really about direction. It was about who was doing what.

Price tells you the market fell on Thursday and recovered some of it Friday. It cannot tell you whether the sellers were funds cutting risk, hedgers protecting books, or dealers absorbing both. Those are different trades with different consequences, and they need to be separated to be useful.

We measure futures positioning by trader category. Here is what the four main groups actually did across the three sessions from Tuesday 3 November's close through Friday 6 November's close — Wednesday, Thursday and Friday — in the contracts that matter most: US equity index, Treasuries, gold and crude.

Here is what the four main groups actually did across the three sessions from Tuesday 3 November's close through Friday 6 November's close — Wednesday, Thursday and Friday — in the contracts that matter most: US equity index, Treasuries, gold and crude.

Managed Money Cust Small Caps Much Harder than the S&P

This is the cleanest signal in the week, and the one that contradicts the headline.

Managed money cut Russell 2000 net longs by 49.7%, from 20,701 contracts to 10,417. Nasdaq-100 longs fell 47.5%, from 9,835 to 5,160. Large caps were cut too, but far less: S&P 500 longs fell 13.1%, from 47,002 to 40,865, and Dow longs 15.8%.

That is a lopsided de-risking event, not an absent one. It hit the highest-beta, most rate-sensitive equity exposure three to four times harder than the core large-cap position. Small caps halved; the S&P gave up an eighth and the Dow a sixth.

If you had only looked at price, you would have said the market sold off. If you look at positioning, what happened is one category of investor trimmed exactly the exposure that had done worst.

Other Reportables Bought the Dip and Pressed Bond Shorts

The group the CFTC calls other reportables covers the reporters that do not fit the commercial or managed-money buckets: some corporate treasuries, some smaller funds, some family offices. They did close to the opposite of managed money.

In equity index futures

They added 86.3% to S&P 500 net longs, from 8,247 to 15,368. They added 140.0% to Nasdaq-100 net longs, from 4,103 to 9,846. On the same contracts where managed money was selling, they were buying.

In Treasury futures

And in rates they did something more aggressive. Their 5-year note net short deepened 88.0%, from -36,756 to -69,095. Their 10-year short deepened 11.8%. So while managed money was covering bond shorts — the 30-year short narrowed 20.5%, the 5-year 8.5% — other reportables were adding to theirs.

Two groups looking at the same yield curve and taking opposite positions. That is the single most useful thing the data shows this week.

Prodicers Sold Gold Hard

Gold positioning was the most one-sided picture in the set.

Producer and merchant accounts, the commercial hedgers who mine and handle metal, moved from a net short of -4,208 contracts to -14,394. Their net short more than tripled in three sessions.

Meanwhile swap dealers covered 2.9% of their own short, other reportables cut 6.5%, and managed money cut its net short 33.2% — the largest proportional reduction of any group in gold that week.

Commercials adding to shorts at that pace is a supply-side signal, not a demand one. It is what it looks like when the people closest to physical metal think the price has run ahead of the physical.

Crude was the Quietest Market, and the Most Divided

WTI barely moved in net terms, but the composition underneath was not quiet.

Other reportables added 35.2% to their net long, from 43,608 to 58,968 contracts. Swap dealers added to their short, from -466,524 to -475,260. Managed money cut a fifth of its net long, from 27,664 to 21,633. Producers barely changed.

A large passive short held by dealers against a growing speculative long. That is a market being warehoused, not a market being repriced. Worth watching if the commodity leg becomes a story again.

What it Adds Up To

Read the price and you get one story: equities fell, then bounced. Read positioning by group and you get four:

• Managed money cut small caps three to four times harder than large caps.

• Other reportables bought mega-cap tech and added to Treasury shorts.

• Producers more than tripled their gold short.

• Dealers quietly warehoused crude.

None of that is visible in an index. All of it is decision-relevant, because the next move in each market depends on which of those groups is close to being forced out.

How to Read these Numbers

One caveat we will state plainly. Contract counts are not comparable across markets, and the precise contract totals are model-dependent. Direction and size of change are what we trust. Anyone quoting a single absolute number from this table without the change beside it is over-reading the data.

Direction and size of change are what we trust; the precise contract totals are model-dependent. Anyone quoting a single absolute number from this table without the change beside it is over-reading the data.

How we Measure it

We publish the split by group daily.

Method: XTech Global Futures Flow (Indigo Panther), Unifier. Positions are inferred by investor category, measured at each session's close and published the following morning. Net equals long minus short contracts. Coverage is contract-dependent: the physical contracts carry all five categories; the equity-index and Treasury contracts carry the three our model resolves for financial futures — managed money, other reportables, and the nonreportable residual. Those three are our decomposition, not the Commission's. The CFTC's own financial-futures report uses a different taxonomy — dealer/intermediary, asset manager/institutional, leveraged funds, other reportables — which does not map one-to-one onto ours, so figures here should not be read as CFTC category totals.

Coverage is contract-dependent: the physical contracts carry all five categories; the equity-index and Treasury contracts carry the three our model resolves for financial futures — managed money, other reportables, and the nonreportable residual.

Those three are our decomposition, not the Commission's.

The CFTC's own financial-futures report uses a different taxonomy — dealer/intermediary, asset manager/institutional, leveraged funds, other reportables — which does not map one-to-one onto ours, so figures here should not be read as CFTC category totals.

Data Source: XTech Global Futures Flow Forecasts

The analysis draws on XTech Global Futures Flow Forecasts, which models both trader groups. The full methodology, figures, and results are in the white paper, "Measuring Market Impact and Inelasticity from Managed-Money and Producer Flow Forecast Data."