Daily price limits
Daily price limits are the maximum price moves the exchange allows in a futures contract during a session, measured from a reference price. CME equity index futures use limits of 7, 13 and 20 percent during regular hours, coordinated with the stock market's circuit breakers, and a 7 percent up-and-down limit overnight, as CME's price-limit FAQ describes them at the time of writing.
Senzoukria · Glossary · Updated September 2026
Definition
The CFTC glossary defines a daily price limit as the maximum price advance or decline from the previous day's settlement price permitted during one trading session, as fixed by the rules of an exchange. Exchanges set limits per product; some products have none, others have fixed limits, and others use levels that expand after being reached.
Equity index futures
For CME's US equity index futures, CME describes limits at 7, 13 and 20 percent applied to a daily reference price during regular trading hours, designed to coordinate with the market-wide circuit breakers applied by the New York Stock Exchange, and a 7 percent up-and-down limit during overnight hours. Check the current price-limit FAQ before relying on these levels; they are exchange rules and can be revised.
Worked example
With a reference price of 5,000.00:
- 7 percent = 350.00 points, so the first levels sit at 4,650.00 and, overnight, also at 5,350.00.
- 13 percent = 650.00 points below: 4,350.00.
- 20 percent = 1,000.00 points below: 4,000.00.
- Each level is rounded to the contract's tick under the exchange's procedure.
What happens at a limit
Depending on the product and the level, reaching a limit either pauses trading for a short period, after which a wider limit applies, or allows trading at or inside the limit but not beyond it for the rest of the session. On an order flow chart, a market held at a limit shows trades stacking at one price, a book that cannot trade through it, and then either silence or a burst when the next band opens.
In Senzoukria
The application does not draw limit prices or announce limit events. Its market clock knows the scheduled session and the daily break, not unscheduled halts, so during a limit halt the chart simply stops advancing. The connection diagnostic states the general problem: a quiet feed and a broken feed look the same on screen.
Common mistakes
- Assuming every futures product has limits, or the same ones.
- Reading a pause at a limit as a feed failure, or the reverse.
- Using the previous close instead of the exchange's reference price to compute levels.
Related
In the same section
- Settlement price
- Daily loss limit
- Conflation
- d1 and d2
- Data vs software cost
- D-shaped profile
- Data feed
- CVD anchor
Sources
- CFTC glossary (2026-09-25)
This page in other languages
Frequently asked questions
- Can ES move more than 7 percent overnight?
- Under the rules CME describes, overnight trading in its US equity index futures is bounded by a 7 percent up-and-down limit from the reference price. Orders beyond the limit cannot execute until the rules allow a wider range.
- Are price limits the same as circuit breakers?
- They are linked but not identical. Circuit breakers are coordinated trading halts on the stock market; futures price limits are the exchange's bounds on futures prices, set to work alongside those halts for equity index products.