Managed Money reduced its net position in every one of the fourteen agricultural markets covered here in the week to Tuesday 3 November, and added gross shorts in every one of them. Corn absorbed the largest single reduction, 72,318 contracts, leaving a net long of 8,795 that is close to neutral after two consecutive weeks of heavy selling. The breadth is the finding, and the mechanism behind the move differs sharply between the grains and the soybean complex.
TL;DR
Every tracked market fell: Managed Money net positions moved lower across all fourteen agricultural futures markets tracked in this edition, with gross short positions increasing in every contract. Gross longs fell in twelve of them.
Corn is nearly neutral: a net long of 8,795 contracts after a 72,318 reduction, following a fall of 83,310 reported in our previous edition.
Corn's decline was short selling: gross shorts rose 52,308 while longs fell 20,010, so new shorts account for roughly 72% of the move.
The soybean complex was the opposite: soybean meal fell 60,347 on 51,582 departing longs against 8,765 new shorts, so long liquidation accounts for roughly 86%.
All three wheat contracts moved lower through shorts: Chicago fell 12,520 with longs almost unchanged, spring wheat 6,022 and Kansas City 4,592, the last with gross longs actually rising 60 contracts.
Open interest tells two stories: total open interest rose in corn and all three wheat contracts as their net positions fell, and contracted in soybeans, soybean meal, sugar, coffee, cocoa, cotton and both cattle contracts.
Lean hogs hold the largest relative short: a net short of 59,072 contracts, equivalent to 18.2% of open interest.
The Positioning Board
Market
Gross long
Gross short
Net position
Weekly Δ net
Net % OI
Corn
229,341
220,546
+8,795
−72,318
+0.5%
Soybeans
187,713
44,986
+142,727
−51,054
+14.9%
Soybean meal
132,789
24,422
+108,367
−60,347
+18.8%
Soybean oil
91,647
44,234
+47,413
−12,918
+7.9%
Wheat, Chicago SRW
78,779
165,905
−87,126
−12,520
−16.3%
Wheat, Kansas City HRW
50,996
56,105
−5,109
−4,592
−1.6%
Spring wheat (HRS, MIAX)
14,410
24,145
−9,735
−6,022
−12.1%
Cotton
69,927
25,759
+44,168
−3,709
+11.4%
Sugar No. 11
317,360
93,576
+223,784
−13,927
+18.8%
Coffee C
34,613
19,881
+14,732
−5,372
+8.8%
Cocoa
17,238
29,491
−12,253
−1,313
−6.8%
Live cattle
72,793
23,102
+49,691
−6,882
+17.3%
Feeder cattle
21,465
7,868
+13,597
−597
+22.2%
Lean hogs
70,680
129,752
−59,072
−7,426
−18.2%
CFTC Disaggregated Commitments of Traders, Futures Only, Managed Money, positions as at 3 November 2026 against 27 October 2026. Contract specifications differ between markets, so contract counts are not comparable across rows. Spreading positions are reported separately and excluded from the net calculation.
Every net position in the table fell. That is unusual enough to be the week's primary observation, and it holds across grains, oilseeds, softs and livestock, which do not normally move together. It also holds regardless of starting position: the five markets already net short moved further into negative territory, while the nine net-long markets reduced their net length.
The second table separates how each move happened, because a falling net position can mean departing longs, arriving shorts, or both, and those are different things.
Market
Δ gross longs
Δ gross shorts
Share of decline from shorts
Corn
−20,010
+52,308
72%
Soybeans
−38,502
+12,552
25%
Soybean meal
−51,582
+8,765
15%
Soybean oil
−5,662
+7,256
56%
Wheat, Chicago SRW
−848
+11,672
93%
Wheat, Kansas City HRW
+60
+4,652
above 100%
Spring wheat (HRS, MIAX)
−571
+5,451
91%
Cotton
+608
+4,317
above 100%
Sugar No. 11
−10,958
+2,969
21%
Coffee C
−2,943
+2,429
45%
Cocoa
−907
+406
31%
Live cattle
−4,604
+2,278
33%
Feeder cattle
−365
+232
39%
Lean hogs
−711
+6,715
90%
Shares are the increase in gross shorts as a proportion of the net decline. Where gross longs rose, the share exceeds 100% because the long side partly offset the short build. These are changes in reported outstanding positions by category, not observations of transactions.
Wheat: Short Building Across All Three Contracts
All three wheat contracts are net short and all three moved lower, and in each case the change came almost entirely from the short side rather than from reduced gross longs.
Chicago soft red winter wheat carries the largest absolute short at 165,905 contracts against 78,779 longs, a net short of 87,126 equal to 16.3% of open interest. The week added 11,672 gross shorts while longs fell just 848, so roughly 93% of the net decline is increased gross short exposure. Spring wheat, the hard red spring contract listed on MIAX Futures Exchange, fell 6,022 on 5,451 added shorts against 571 reduced longs, a similar composition on a much smaller contract. Kansas City hard red winter wheat is the clearest case of all: gross longs actually rose by 60 contracts while shorts rose 4,652, so the entire net decline and slightly more is attributable to the short side.
Total open interest rose in all three, by 9,300 contracts in Chicago, 3,006 in Kansas City and 2,159 in spring wheat. A falling net position alongside growing total open interest is consistent with increased gross short exposure rather than reduced gross long exposure, which is what the Managed Money figures show. Total open interest covers every trader category, so it cannot by itself identify which participants transacted.
What the data do not establish is why. The report records outstanding positions by trader category at a weekly cut-off and identifies neither the reasoning behind them nor the prices at which they were established. It is worth noting the timing against the physical data: these positions were held on 3 November, five days before the Crop Progress survey of 8 November that recorded a five-point improvement in winter wheat conditions. The positioning does not reflect that improvement, and no inference about what funds would have done with it is available here.
Corn: Two Weeks of Heavy Selling Leave the Net Near Zero
Corn's net long of 8,795 contracts is the smallest in the grain complex in both absolute and relative terms, at approximately 0.5% of open interest. It follows a reduction of 72,318 contracts this week and a fall of 83,310 reported in our previous edition, so the position has been cut heavily in two consecutive weeks.
The composition differs from wheat's. Gross shorts rose 52,308 to 220,546 and gross longs fell 20,010 to 229,341, so new short selling accounts for roughly 72% of the move while long liquidation supplies the remainder. Both sides contributed, which is a more two-sided change than wheat's, and it leaves the two books almost exactly matched: 229,341 longs against 220,546 shorts, a difference of less than 4% of either side.
Corn's net reduction occurred alongside an increase of 59,537 contracts in total market open interest, the largest increase of any market in the table. Managed Money gross shorts increased by 52,308 while gross longs declined by 20,010. The combination indicates a larger aggregate futures market and a more heavily short-positioned Managed Money category, although total open interest includes other trader categories and cannot independently establish which participants opened or closed positions.
Against that sits a physical picture that moved the other way in the same period. The corn harvest deficit against the five-year average widened from three points to five in the week to 8 November, with Iowa seventeen points behind its average on 27% topsoil surplus. The positions were set before that data was published. We make no claim that the positioning and the physical data should agree, and a near-neutral net position is not a forecast of anything; it describes a book that is close to balanced at one observation point.
Soybeans: Liquidation Rather Than Short Selling
The soybean complex moved for a different reason from the grains. Soybean meal recorded the second-largest net reduction in the table at 60,347 contracts, and the composition is almost the mirror image of wheat's: gross longs fell 51,582 while shorts rose only 8,765, so roughly 86% of the decline is departing length. Soybeans themselves fell 51,054 on 38,502 departing longs against 12,552 new shorts, approximately 75% long liquidation. Soybean oil is the exception within the complex, splitting 56% shorts to 44% longs.
Total open interest is consistent with that distinction. Soybean meal lost 32,914 contracts and soybeans 19,838, so both markets contracted while their net positions fell. That combination is consistent with position liquidation rather than with opposing positions being opened, which is a different pattern from the one in wheat and corn even though the direction of the net figure is the same. As above, total open interest spans all categories and cannot establish which participants closed positions.
Soybean oil runs against its own complex here, with open interest rising 28,316 contracts. Within a single complex, one market contracting on liquidation while another expands on two-sided activity is worth noting, though the report offers no explanation for it.
All three soybean markets remain net long, and substantially so: 142,727 contracts in beans, 108,367 in meal and 47,413 in oil, equal to 14.9%, 18.8% and 7.9% of their respective open interest. These are reductions from large positions, not reversals.
Soft Commodities: Smaller Moves on Shrinking Markets
The softs recorded the smallest reductions in the table and all four shrank in open interest.
Sugar No. 11 holds the largest net long of any market covered, 223,784 contracts at 18.8% of open interest, and gave up 13,927 on the week. The composition leans to liquidation, with 10,958 departing longs against 2,969 new shorts, roughly 21% from the short side. Open interest fell 14,043.
Coffee fell 5,372 to a net long of 14,732, split 45% shorts and 55% longs, with open interest down 4,705. Cocoa recorded the smallest absolute change of the grains and softs at 1,313 contracts, deepening a net short to 12,253, or 6.8% of open interest, on 907 departing longs and 406 new shorts. Cotton fell 3,709 to a net long of 44,168, and like Kansas City wheat saw gross longs rise, by 608, so the whole of its net decline and more came from the 4,317 shorts added, against open interest down 9,948.
Cotton's position sits against a physical picture of a harvest running eight points ahead of its five-year average, which is the clearest positive progress figure in the current Crop Progress release. The two observations are drawn from different datasets on different dates and no relationship between them is established here.
Livestock: Cattle Reduce, Hogs Extend a Large Short
Live cattle gave up 6,882 contracts to a net long of 49,691, approximately 17.3% of open interest, with 4,604 departing longs against 2,278 new shorts. Feeder cattle recorded the smallest net change of any market in the table, a reduction of 597 contracts to 13,597, though at 22.2% of open interest that remains the largest net long relative to market size anywhere on the board. Open interest fell in both, by 1,279 and 3,861 contracts.
Lean hogs are the outlier in composition. The net short deepened 7,426 contracts to 59,072, equal to 18.2% of open interest and the largest relative short position in the table. Gross shorts rose 6,715 while longs fell only 711, so approximately 90% of the move is new short exposure, a pattern closer to wheat's than to cattle's. Open interest rose 17,159 contracts, the second-largest increase after corn, so the short building took place in a growing market.
What the Positioning Data Tell Us
Two patterns are visible and they divide the table cleanly. In corn, all three wheat contracts and lean hogs, net positions fell while total open interest rose, with increased gross short exposure supplying most or all of the decline. In soybeans, soybean meal, sugar, coffee, cocoa and both cattle contracts, net positions fell while total open interest contracted, with reduced gross long exposure supplying most of it. Cotton and soybean oil sit between the two.
The distinction matters because the two are consistent with different end states. A net position reduced through liquidation sits alongside a smaller market and less reported exposure on either side. A net position reduced through added shorts sits alongside a larger market and a bigger reported short book, which is eventually closed by buying whatever the reason it was opened. The table does not indicate which is more likely to reverse, and nothing here forecasts that either will.
Three limits apply throughout. The report is a snapshot of reported positions at a Tuesday cut-off, so it says nothing about activity in the days since, including the sessions following the 8 November Crop Progress release. It records positions by category rather than transactions, so a change in a category total can reflect a transfer between traders rather than new exposure. And contract specifications differ between these markets, so the contract counts in the table cannot be summed or compared across rows; the net percentage of open interest is the comparable measure.
The Bottom Line
Fourteen tracked markets, fourteen reductions in net position, and gross shorts rising in all fourteen. Breadth on that scale across grains, oilseeds, softs and livestock is the most notable feature of the release, and it is not explained by anything within the positioning data itself. The Commission reports more agricultural contracts than the fourteen covered here.
Corn recorded the largest weekly reduction in net contracts among the markets tracked, though contract specifications differ so that is not an economically comparable ranking. A net long of 8,795 against total open interest of 1.92 million is close enough to neutral that the distinction between net long and net short has largely stopped carrying information, and it arrived there across two consecutive weeks of heavy reduction. The wheat complex has moved further short across all three contracts without its long books materially contracting, which is a different composition reaching the same direction.
The next report is scheduled for Monday 16 November at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time, 8:30 p.m. in the United Kingdom, a delayed release owing to the Veterans Day federal holiday, covering positions held on Tuesday 10 November. It may capture positioning associated with the 9 November Crop Progress release and with the November World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report, though that report is published at noon Eastern on the same day as the position snapshot, so whether any given position reflects it depends on the timing of trading within that session.
FAQ
Did any agricultural market increase its net position in the week to 3 November?
No. All fourteen markets covered here recorded a lower net position than a week earlier, and gross short positions rose in every one of them.
How large is the corn net long now?
8,795 contracts, approximately 0.5% of open interest. It fell 72,318 contracts on the week, following a reduction of 83,310 reported in our previous edition.
Was corn's decline long liquidation or new short selling?
Predominantly short selling. Gross shorts rose 52,308 while gross longs fell 20,010, so roughly 72% of the net decline came from the short side.
Why is the soybean meal move described differently?
Because its composition is the reverse. Gross longs fell 51,582 while shorts rose only 8,765, so approximately 86% of the 60,347-contract decline is departing length rather than new short exposure.
Are funds net short all three wheat contracts?
Yes. Chicago soft red winter is net short 87,126 contracts, spring wheat 9,735 and Kansas City hard red winter 5,109. All three moved lower on the week, and in Kansas City's case gross longs rose while the net still fell.
Which market holds the largest short relative to its size?
Lean hogs, with a net short of 59,072 contracts equal to 18.2% of open interest. Chicago wheat is close behind at 16.3%.
Does a near-neutral corn position mean funds expect prices to fall?
No. The report describes reported positions at a single weekly cut-off. It does not record intent, entry prices, or the reasoning behind any position, and a balanced book is not a forecast.
Why can the contract numbers not be compared between markets?
Because contract specifications differ. Corn and wheat contracts cover 5,000 bushels, cotton and the livestock contracts are specified differently again, so a contract count means a different quantity of the underlying commodity in each market. The net percentage of open interest is the comparable figure.
Data and Source Note
All positioning figures are from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's Disaggregated Commitments of Traders report, Futures Only, long format, for positions held at the close of Tuesday 3 November 2026 and released on Friday 6 November 2026. Weekly changes are against positions held on 27 October 2026 as published in the same report's change rows.
Figures are the Managed Money category and are taken from the "All" row for each market, which combines all contract months. Spreading positions are reported separately by the Commission and are excluded from net calculations throughout. Net percentage of open interest is calculated as the net position divided by total reported open interest for that market, and corresponds to the difference between the Commission's published long and short percentage figures subject to rounding.
The report classifies traders by category rather than tracking transactions. A change in a category total can therefore reflect a transfer of positions between traders as well as the opening or closing of exposure, and no statement here should be read as identifying who transacted or why.
Contract specifications differ between the markets listed, so contract counts are not additive and are not comparable across rows, and no ranking by contract count should be read as an economically comparable comparison. The hard red spring wheat contract is identified by the Commission as WHEAT-HRSpring, MIAX Futures Exchange, code 001626, and is labelled here as spring wheat (HRS, MIAX); historical comparisons should use that identification rather than the exchange's former name. Shares of decline attributable to the short side are calculated as the increase in gross shorts divided by the fall in the net position; where gross longs rose, that share exceeds 100% and is described as such rather than given as a figure.
The previous week's corn reduction of 83,310 contracts is as published in our Agricultural Positioning Intelligence edition of 2 November 2026. References to crop progress and condition are from the USDA NASS Crop Progress report released 9 November 2026 for the week ended 8 November 2026, which post-dates the positions described here and is cited only to date the two observations relative to one another.
The Commission's published calendar lists Monday 16 November 2026 for the next release, marked as delayed owing to a federal holiday, covering positions held on Tuesday 10 November 2026.
