COT
Cotinga Pharmaceuticals Inc
stock NYSE

**Unpopular opinion: your strategy probably doesn't work. Mine didn't either.**
To be clear up front: this is not an ad. There is no course, no signals, nothing to buy, and I'm not collecting emails. I just want to share what I found.

Before you put money on any system, it's worth finding out what actually works and what doesn't. So I tested it properly: realistic retail costs (spread, commission, overnight swaps), and every idea had to prove itself on data it had never seen.
What I tested: 3,100+ forex setups. Session breakouts, London and Tokyo fixes, intraday patterns, cross-pair lead-lag, carry, COT positioning, trend following, FOMC days, 162 indicators, and a scalping bot running live on a demo account.

What survived after costs: nothing.

• A EUR/USD round trip costs about 0.7 pip. Two out of three 1-minute moves are smaller than that.
• The broker's swap mark-up (1–1.8% a year per side) is about the size of every published FX edge.
• Oscillator strategies won \~60% of their trades and still lost money.
• My scalping bot: 201 demo trades, all 4 strategies negative, 81% of the loss was commission.

Full write-up with charts, data sources and methods:
[https://www.raysize.eu/forex.html](https://www.raysize.eu/forex.html)

Tell me where you think I'm wrong.

Know that a futures position is not necessarily directional. They are used for hedging, spreads, and also for delta neutralization of options and equity positions. Many other things too, including pure directional trades.
It's very to misinterpret COT reports, and they are always stale. Reported on Friday as of the close of trade on the proceeding Tuesday. So what you're posting today is a reality from a week ago. A whole lot can be unwound in a week.
It's end of the quarter today also, lots of rebalancing happening last couple of weeks. Noisy.

QQQ Warning - Notice - Time to pay attention. COT report pinned to the max. It's bad time to be sleeping on the job.

Absolutely. If your goal is to understand trading from first principles rather than memorize setups, then learning from random videos can become confusing very quickly—especially with Market Profile, TPO, Order Flow, Delta, IB, COT, absorption, etc.
Since you have a science background, I’d suggest treating trading almost like a structured subject:
Market mechanics → price discovery → auction theory → volume → order flow → Market Profile/TPO → execution → strategy → statistics/risk management.

Busy data week ahead, with a heavy jobs calendar, MU earnings on Wednesday and no shortage of Fed speakers. Seasonality is also getting close to flipping back into a tailwind, with October historically the strongest month of midterm years.
Let’s start with Friday when I wrote that when it comes to political leaders, you need to watch what they do, not just what they say as talk of a possible US-Iran deal picked up,. At the same time that the more constructive deal headlines were circulating, the US was continuing to move military assets into the region.
Since then, Trump has rejected Iran’s proposal, oil is moving higher and equities are under pressure. DO note however that Axios reported that further talks are still expected this week… Do note that the iranian authorities said no talks will be held, the Iranian delegation remains in the US, which is worth keeping in mind. If there was genuinely no intention to continue talking, you have to ask why they are still there….
So I definitely would not say talks are 100% over yet, but the situation remains extremely fluid.
There is also a Trump announcement scheduled for 2 p.m. ET today. We do not yet know whether it has anything to do with Iran, but given how sensitive this market has become to headlines, I would pay close attention if you are actively trading.
Bond volatility is unlikely to disappear either as we have around 19 Fed speaker events this week, making this one of the busiest weeks for Fed communication in quite some time.
https://preview.redd.it/79m4b5gv29sh1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=5f647d135b650d45c64da33e5ea039bc7f42b1ac
One side note here - whenever you are reading comments from individual Fed members, always put them in the context of who is speaking. Are they more hawkish or dovish in general? Are they repeating something they have already told the market, or are they changing their view?
For example, if a known hawk like Kashkari says rates are not high enough, that should generally matter less than a previously dovish member suddenly making the same argument. The change in stance is often more important than the headline itself. Here;s a quick cheat sheet on Fed hawks and doves
https://preview.redd.it/s45fwtmw29sh1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=95108e11790d8142af6634a1146b1ece8274f86c
Credit is also starting to deserve more attention as high-yield spreads have widened around 28bp over the past three days which is the largest move since October 2025. While absolute spread levels are still relatively low, but the pace of widening has accelerated, which is something I am watching closely.
https://preview.redd.it/n2ab3pix29sh1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=ea56b9547824ceaa0049d5319ec277b3372babde
We are seeing something similar underneath the surface in positioning from the latest CFTC COT report which showed some outflows across the major equity indices
https://preview.redd.it/8thmgwdy29sh1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=40657b0f7b0a165710c76a8999d2ef1dc6fcf2f1
Thhis corresponds with the quarterly rebalancing as pension funds are 112% funded:
https://preview.redd.it/2dtfmv3z29sh1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=de415172474eae87eb0eb95a605cc669b9ffc901
This is giving them more room to lock in gains by trimming equities and buying bonds that better match their future obligations and that will create some mechanical selling pressure in stocks and demand for fixed income over the next few sessions..
At the same time, the market is getting less support from corporate buybacks, meaning there are fewer natural flows available to absorb selling pressure.
On the diesel export ban, from a trading perspective, firms are already front-run the potential impact rather than waiting for the policy itself to fully hit the market and doubt will provide any relief for equites as it’s also been in the news for week
For this week the options market is pricing roughly an 11-point SPX move, giving us an approximate range of 760–780, with the lower end sitting close to the 50-day moving average.
We also have the JPM collar expiring on Wednesday as part of the quarter-end reset. Its current call is around 7,890 and the protective put around 7,090, so both strikes are outside the immediate SPX range.
The question is where JPM establishes the new Q4 collar as those new strikes could become much more relevant reference levels for the market over the coming quarter.
In terms of positioning, 765 is the first support but do note we have moved into a negative vol regime so market makers will not be buying dips and selling into rallies.
https://preview.redd.it/lueby0i039sh1.png?width=617&format=png&auto=webp&s=34315a97663cc372c70216d94a9ec473a9ccb277
QQQs ar eshowing a v similar picture but market maker exposure has gone more negative there
https://preview.redd.it/n7xv5u6139sh1.png?width=612&format=png&auto=webp&s=8ff3ab3647cd91d6e5f6dbfb92047e91193591c8
Volumes in both are close to neutral, leaning a bit bullish an VIX remains pinned bellow 16-17;
Overall, I remain cautious

Thanks for the comment - maybe intent and context is where im struggling.. i guess what im asking is where to draw the line between intent / context vs emotion and subjectivity.. is this something is learned over time and exposure to the market, or is it quantifiable and available from things like COT reports etc

He's right. COT data shows current ZB short positioning is very elevated. Its publicly available and you can use it on tradingview charts if you use them. If not, i think barchart has them on their website. But the reasoning is that both tarriff and trade deals provide price relief. There will inevitably be a capitulation with iran and in the meantime, virtue signaling will be sufficient to provide relief for bonds in particular (because of how expensive vol has got) and oil. I think it's important to note that I'm saying those things HAVE to happen to outweigh any reactions of this week's prints. And if it does than the likely area of balance will be in the 7825-7850 range.