The latest Commitments of Traders report was released, covering positions through Tuesday

The 3-Year Min/Max Screen shows that "smart money" commercial hedgers didn't make too many extreme moves in the latest week. That's likely to be the case in the coming weeks as well as they wind down ahead of year-end. The only new extremes were fresh multi-year shorts against copper and the Japanese yen. They sold more oil as well and are now holding more than 25% of the open interest net short. According to the Backtest Engine, oil has done poorly when they've held this many contracts net short, and so have energy stocks. The XLE fund showed a positive return over the next 2 months after 31 out of 86 weeks, a 36% win rate, with a median return of -2.3%. Another headwind they need to overcome to change the long-term trend. In major equity index futures, the smart money added yet again, and are now holding more than $20 billion net long. The Backtest Engine shows that during the past decade, the S&P 500 rallied over the next 2 months after 43 out of 45 weeks when hedgers were holding more than $20 billion worth of the contracts.