ZW Futures (Wheat): Tick Value, Expiries, Order Flow

ZW contract specifications

The contract unit is 5,000 bushels, quoted in cents per bushel. The minimum fluctuation is 1/4 cent per bushel, worth $12.50 per contract, and one cent per bushel is worth $50 per contract. Open contracts are settled by delivery no later than the second business day after the last trading day. Senzoukria's contract table holds the tick as 0.25 with a multiplier of 50 on the CBOT venue code.

ZW last trading day and next contracts

No trades are made after the business day preceding the 15th calendar day of the contract month.

Senzoukria's expiry engine keys on the last trading day, not on first notice day, so its default switch comes after first notice. For ZWZ6, the default moves to the next listed month on December 10, 2026 (4 calendar days before December 14, 2026), and ZWZ6 stays selectable with its badge until that date.

ZW tick value and P&L arithmetic

• One tick = 0.25 × $50 = $12.50 per contract.
• One cent per bushel = 4 ticks = $50 per contract.
• 20 ticks (5 cents) = $250 per contract, $750 on 3 contracts.
• One tick of slippage in the automatic backtest costs $12.50 per contract on each entry.

Reading ZW order flow

With row resolution off, a ZW footprint has one row per tick of 0.25 cents. The fixed steps give 2 ticks = 0.5, 4 ticks = 1, 8 ticks = 2, 16 ticks = 4, 32 ticks = 8 cents per row.

Wheat shares corn's quarter-cent tick, $12.50 tick value and five-month calendar (H, K, N, U, Z), so the arithmetic and the grid are identical: four ticks per cent, the 4-tick fixed step giving one row per cent. The books, the deliverable grain and the tape are distinct, which is what a footprint reads.

Using ZW in Senzoukria

• Symbol picker on a Rithmic or Databento CME source: type ZW; on September 25, 2026 the listed contract is ZWZ6 (December 2026), in the Grains family.
• Heatmap and DOM show that contract's book with CBOT as the venue in the ladder header.
• Replay lists ZW in the Grains group. In the automatic backtest, set Point value ($) to 50; the field defaults to 2, the MNQ value.