ES Futures (E-mini S&P 500): Tick Value, Expiries, Order Flow

ES contract specifications

The rulebook defines ES as $50 times the S&P 500, quoted in index points. The minimum increment is 0.25 point, equal to $12.50 per contract. Four ticks make a point, so one index point is worth $50. ES is cash-settled: the expiring month settles to a special opening quotation of the index on the third Friday of the contract month. Senzoukria's contract table carries the same tick, multiplier and venue (CME); the simulated account, the picker's tick hint and the heatmap's price grid read them from it.

ES expiry rule and next contracts

Trading in an expiring ES contract ends at the regularly scheduled start of trading on the New York Stock Exchange on the day of the final settlement price, the third Friday of the contract month. If the index is not scheduled to be published that Friday, settlement moves to the first preceding business day on which it is.

June 18, 2027 is the observed Juneteenth holiday, so the exchange calendar puts the ESM7 last trading day on June 17, 2027. Senzoukria's expiry engine counts Monday to Friday without a holiday table and uses June 18, 2027 instead, so its picker keeps ESM7 listed until then. For ESZ6, the default moves to the next listed month on December 10, 2026 (8 calendar days before December 18, 2026), and ESZ6 stays selectable with its badge until that date.

ES tick value and P&L arithmetic

• 10 ticks (2.5 points) = 10 × $12.50 = $125 per contract.
• A 4-point stop is 16 ticks: 4 × $50 = $200 per contract, $600 on 3 contracts.
• The same 4 points on MES are worth $20 per contract.
• One tick of slippage, the automatic backtest's default, costs $12.50 per ES contract on each entry.

Reading ES order flow

With row resolution off, Senzoukria's default, an ES footprint shows four rows per index point, each cell holding the volume traded at the bid and at the ask at that exact price. The fixed choices give 2 ticks = 0.5, 4 ticks = 1, 8 ticks = 2, 16 ticks = 4, 32 ticks = 8 points per row; grouping keeps bar totals exact, but the POC then names a row instead of a price.

ES and MES share the index, the quarter-point tick and the expiry calendar, but they are two order books with two tapes. A block printed on ES never appears in an MES footprint, and resting size in the ES ladder says nothing about the MES ladder. The rulebook links them only through halts: MES does not trade while the primary ES contract month is halted.

The DOM panel's default "Large orders ≥ 40" threshold is sized for MNQ-class books, and Senzoukria's DOM documentation notes that a full-size ES book needs a higher value. Heatmap quantity thresholds are stored per source and per instrument, so a floor tuned on ES is not carried over to MES.

Using ES in Senzoukria

• Symbol picker on a Rithmic or Databento CME source: type ES; on September 25, 2026 the listed contract is ESZ6 (December 2026).
• Heatmap and DOM show the book of that exact contract; the heatmap ladder header names the contract and its venue, CME.
• GEX overlay: levels computed from SPY options are converted to the ES price with a spot ratio and labelled with the underlying ("CW · SPY"); an options data source is required.
• Replay lists ES in the Indices group and replays the broker's tick history, without the order book. In the automatic backtest, set Point value ($) to 50; the field defaults to 2, the MNQ value.