CL Futures (WTI Crude Oil): Tick Value, Expiries, Order Flow

CL contract specifications

The contract unit is 1,000 barrels, quoted in U.S. dollars and cents per barrel. The minimum fluctuation is $0.01 per barrel, so one tick is worth $10 and a one-dollar move $1,000 per contract. It is settled by physical delivery at Cushing, Oklahoma. Senzoukria's contract table holds the same tick and multiplier on the NYMEX venue code.

CL last trading day and next contracts

Trading ends three business days before the 25th calendar day of the month preceding the delivery month. If the 25th is not a business day, it ends three business days before the last business day preceding the 25th.

A contract named for November stops trading in October: a picker that assumed trading continues into the delivery month would propose a contract that no longer trades. Senzoukria's expiry engine implements the 25th rule for CL, MCL and QM. For CLX6, the default moves to the next listed month on October 16, 2026 (4 calendar days before October 20, 2026), and CLX6 stays selectable with its badge until that date.

For CLF7 the 25th is Christmas Day, so the rule steps back to Thursday, December 24 and the exchange's last trading day is Monday, December 21, 2026. Senzoukria's engine counts December 25 as a business day and computes December 22.

CL tick value and P&L arithmetic

• One tick = $0.01 × 1,000 = $10.
• 10 ticks ($0.10 per barrel) = $100 per contract.
• A $0.30 stop is 30 ticks: $300 per contract, $600 on 2 contracts.
• The same $0.30 on MCL is $30 per contract.

Reading CL order flow

With row resolution off, a CL footprint has one row per $0.01 tick and prices carry 2 decimals. The fixed steps give 2 ticks = 0.02, 4 ticks = 0.04, 8 ticks = 0.08, 16 ticks = 0.16, 32 ticks = 0.32 dollars per barrel per row.

CL's one-cent tick means ten ticks make ten cents and a hundred ticks a dollar, but Senzoukria's fixed row steps are powers of two, so they give 2 to 32 cents per row and never exactly 5, 10 or 25 cents. Leave grouping off to read each cent, or pick a fixed step and keep it for comparisons. MCL quotes the same WTI price on the same one-cent grid but is a separate, cash-settled book; QM, the E-mini, trades on a coarser 2.5-cent grid.

Using CL in Senzoukria

• Symbol picker on a Rithmic or Databento CME source: type CL; on September 25, 2026 the listed contract is CLX6 (November 2026), in the Energy family.
• Heatmap and DOM show that contract's book with NYMEX as the venue in the ladder header.
• Replay lists CL in the Energy group. In the automatic backtest, set Point value ($) to 1,000, the value of a one-dollar move; the field defaults to 2.