How the fundamental bias is calculated

Published October 2026.

The bias and the score

The bias is a directional verdict per currency: strongly bullish, bullish, neutral or bearish. Each bias is backed by a score. The score carries the bias: when the score moves far enough, the bias changes.

The Fundamentals Engine re-scores every currency once a day, at about 03:00 UTC. The bias is not realtime. Data that is released during the day shows up in the next daily run.

What goes into it

On the platform, the factors below are brought together per currency pair in a confluence view, so you can see where they agree and where they conflict.

• Intrinsic macro strength. Surveys, inflation, the labour market, fiscal health (including the central bank's balance sheet) and monetary policy.
• External drivers. Influences on the currency from outside its domestic economy.
• News sentiment. News is classified with AI assistance.
• Risk sentiment. Whether markets are in a risk-on or a risk-off mood.
• Carry. The interest-rate differential, based on central bank policy rates. See rate differentials below.
• COT positioning. Speculative positioning from the CFTC. See COT positioning below.
• Balance of payments. A funding-fragility gauge based on IMF data. We use it as context, not as a call on direction.
• Seasonality.

Each factor has its own weight. We do not publish the weights.

COT positioning

Positioning comes from the Commitments of Traders (COT) data published by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). For currencies we use the Traders in Financial Futures (TFF) report, futures only, and look at the Leveraged Money category (hedge funds and CTAs). For the US dollar we use the ICE US Dollar Index future. For commodities we use the Disaggregated report and its Managed Money category.

The CFTC publishes the report weekly. It reflects positions as of Tuesday and is generally released on Friday at 3:30 PM Eastern Time. You can browse the data on the COT pages.

Flip

The flip is net leveraged positioning as a share of open interest:

flip = (leveraged long − leveraged short) / open interest × 100

Percentile and thresholds

The flip is ranked as a percentile against all weekly history since January 2015. Some markets (USD, GBP and NZD) have a shorter history, because the CFTC renamed those contracts in 2022.

The crowded readings are the extreme ends of the long-side and short-side zones.

We also calculate z-scores of the flip over three windows: the full history, the last 52 weeks and the last 520 weeks.

Economic calendar

The figures on the economic calendar come from Trading Economics. Actual figures are the official numbers from the agency that publishes the data. The forecast is Trading Economics' own forecast where one is available; otherwise it is the market consensus.

When a release comes in above or below the forecast, we combine that with whether a higher value is positive for that indicator. That gives an implied read for the currency. It is not a measured price reaction: we do not check how the currency actually moved.

Rate differentials

The interest-rate differentials are based on central bank policy rates and are updated daily. The swap you pay or receive at a retail broker will differ from this differential, because brokers add a markup.

Limitations

• The bias is not a forecast and not a trade signal.
• We do not publish a hit rate for the bias.
• Economic data can be revised after release, which can change the inputs after the fact.
• COT positioning lags: the report reflects Tuesday positions and is published three days later.
• The models and the AI classification of news can be wrong.

Nothing on this site is investment advice. See the disclaimer, and the editorial policy for how our written content is checked.

Changelog

• Oct 2026: methodology page published.