Futures Contract Specifications for ES and NQ: Tick Size, Contract Value, and Expiration

The fastest way to misjudge risk in futures is to misremember what a point or tick is worth. A trader who thinks a 10-point stop on NQ costs $100 when it costs $200 has sized the trade at double the intended risk before the order is even sent. The specifications below are the base for every position-size and stop calculation.

Point and tick values

One point is four ticks in all four contracts. A micro tracks the same index as its full-size contract, so the charts look the same. Only the dollar value per move differs, at one tenth the size.

Contract codes and expiration

Equity index futures here are quarterly. The month codes are H for March, M for June, U for September and Z for December, followed by a year digit or two, so the December 2026 contract is often shown as ESZ6 or ESZ26 depending on the platform. They trade on CME Group and settle in cash, so there's no physical delivery to worry about. Expiration normally falls on the third Friday of the contract month, but confirm against the CME product calendar because holidays and product rules can change dates.

Trading hours are typically Sunday evening through Friday afternoon on Globex, from 5:00 PM to 4:00 PM CT with a daily break. Regular-session hours, the cash open at 9:30 AM ET, and holiday schedules vary, so don't treat any of them as universal. Check the CME Group site for the current specifications and holiday calendar. Margin is another number that changes, so look it up at the time you trade. It's collateral posted against the position, not a cap on what you can lose. A stop order can also fill beyond its price in a fast market.

Rolling to the next contract

Each contract has a finite life, so a trader who wants continuous exposure rolls from the expiring contract to the next one. Volume and open interest move over in the days before expiration. The timing varies by quarter, so watch the volume on both contracts instead of counting a fixed number of days. Trade the contract with the liquidity, since the old one gets thin, spreads widen and fills get worse.

Platforms handle this differently. In NinjaTrader 8, contract merging and rollover are governed by the instrument's merge policy and rollover settings, so follow the NinjaTrader 8 help guide for the exact steps rather than relying on someone else's menu path.

Why rolls matter for charts and backtests

The expiring and next contracts trade at different prices because of the cost of carry, so a naive chart can show a gap on roll day that was never a real market move. Back-adjusted continuous data removes that gap by shifting older prices. That keeps point differences consistent, but it means old prices no longer match what actually traded, and percentage returns on very old data can be distorted. For backtests, use the front-month contract and handle the rolls deliberately. A suspiciously short test window usually means a rollover merge went wrong, not that the data ran out.

Dollar risk, worked through

Notional exposure is a different number. If NQ were at 20,000 (hypothetical), one contract controls $20 x 20,000 = $400,000 of index value. That's why a small margin deposit can sit behind a large position, and why sizing from risk, not from available margin, is the safer habit.

Do this exercise until it's automatic. Pick a stop distance, convert it to dollars for each contract, then divide your per-trade risk budget by that figure and round down. If the answer is less than one full contract, use a micro. Put your results through the edge calculator alongside commissions, because on micros a round-trip fee of more than a tick eats a visible share of a small target. Then confirm all values against the exchange specifications before trading, since contract terms can change.