Commodities: The 'Commitment of Traders' Reports Aren't Really Timing Tools But...

They can tell you when to pay attention.

Here's the introduction to "Gold, Silver Looking At Two-Year Lows", August 13:

Ditto for platinum which has its own set of diesel vehicle problems.
We've referred to gold's "stately decline" and have an ultimate price target of $875 but now's the time to look at the Commitment of Traders reports for a possible pause.

While we place less weight on the CoT's than many analysts, they can be helpful to point up short term trend changes, simply because over time the commercials have to be right or they go out of business and the game ends for everyone....

...Note that the commercial hedgers have been pulling in their shorts since January and are approaching a net flat position.
This doesn't mean an immediate explosive move to the upside, just that being short is getting more dangerous until the commercials move any inventory they've been accumulating....

Which was promptly followed by:"Metals Meltdown: Copper Crashes, Silver Slammed, Palladium Plunges":

...Yesterday, our caution on the short side was early:

Front futures August 28:

FinViz 

Here's the one year picture, mid-August was the first serious price reversal since the April highs up around $1365:

Sometimes you get lucky.