Contract specifications

Contract specifications are the exchange-published definition of a futures product: what one contract represents, its minimum price fluctuation and the value of that tick, the trading hours, the listed months and the settlement method. They are the source for every unit a footprint chart displays, and they can be revised by the exchange.

Senzoukria · Glossary · Updated September 2026

What a specification sheet contains

Every figure comes from the exchange. For CME products the contract specification page of each product is the reference, and the NQ and MNQ guide on this site links to those pages rather than reproducing numbers that could go stale.

  • Contract unit: the multiple of the index or the quantity of the commodity one contract represents.
  • Minimum price fluctuation: the tick, the smallest increment at which the contract can be quoted.
  • Tick value: the money value of one tick, which is the contract unit times the tick.
  • Trading hours, including the daily pause and the settlement window.
  • Listed contract months, last trading day and whether settlement is cash or physical.
  • Product code and the exchange it is listed on.

How specs shape an order flow chart

The tick defines the price grid on which trades are recorded, so it is the finest row a footprint can show. Aggregating several ticks per row is a readability choice that changes the number of rows and the diagonals computed across them, but not the underlying executions. The contract unit decides what a cell's count means in money, which is why a size filter tuned on one contract does not transfer to another written on the same index.

Trading hours decide where sessions begin and end, and therefore where session-anchored studies reset. The expiry cycle decides when volume migrates from one month to the next, and a continuous series glued across that roll mixes two different order books.

In Senzoukria

The desktop application keeps an instrument catalogue with each contract's tick size. When a symbol is missing from it, the history screen says that the instrument's price grid is unknown and its history is not being cached, and asks for the tick size to be added to the catalogue. The indicator data notes list 'Aggregated price levels and instrument tick size' and 'OHLC bars and instrument tick size' as inputs, and studies such as the bar spread proxy and POC distance produce no output without a known tick size.

The heatmap ladder shows the 'Contract shown by the ladder', a specific month such as ESU6, and the backtest panel takes a 'Point value ($)' per instrument. Market data itself is billed by the provider and requires an entitlement for the exchange concerned.

Common mistakes

  • Copying tick size or point value from memory or from a forum instead of the exchange page.
  • Assuming two products on the same index share a specification.
  • Ignoring the roll and reading a continuous series as one book.
  • Applying an equity-index session schedule to a product with different hours.

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Frequently asked questions

Where do I find the official specification for a CME contract?
On the product's page on the CME Group website, under its contract specifications tab. That page lists the contract unit, minimum price fluctuation, trading hours, listed months and settlement method, and it is updated when the exchange changes a product. Read it there rather than from a third-party summary.
Why does my footprint show rows finer than the tick?
It should not; a chart cannot record a price the exchange never quoted. If rows appear at fractions of the tick, the instrument's tick size is probably wrong in the platform's catalogue, or the feed is delivering prices in a different scale than the chart assumes. Correct the catalogue entry first.
Do specifications ever change?
Yes. Exchanges revise tick sizes, trading hours and occasionally contract units, and they list new products and delist old ones. Treat a specification as dated information and re-check it when something on the chart stops matching the money on the statement.

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