some fellows ask me as to the meaning of noncommercial trader. What noncommercial trader is, is a classification used by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to identify traders that use the futures market for speculative purposes. Generally, the category of noncommercial trader includes individual investors, hedge funds, and some large financial institutions. If noncommercial traders (speculators) have a substantial number of short positions, it can be inferred that this group of investors believes the price of the underlying asset is going to decrease.
