Listing cycle (which contract months a product trades)
A futures product's listing cycle is the set of delivery months in which it has contracts: quarterly for equity index, currency and Treasury futures, every month for crude oil and CME bitcoin, and product-specific patterns for metals, grains and livestock. The cycle decides how often the front month changes and which contract follows which.
Senzoukria · Glossary · Updated September 2026
Definition
Each product's specification says which delivery months exist. A product on the March quarterly cycle has four expiries a year; a monthly product has twelve. Other products follow their own pattern, often tied to harvest, delivery logistics or historical convention. The exchange may also list extra months further out or close to expiry that trade little; the months that carry the volume form the active cycle a chart normally follows.
Cycles in Senzoukria's contract catalogue
The application's catalogue records for each root the delivery months it treats as front-month candidates. The table below reproduces it. It is the application's working calendar, not a substitute for the exchange's listing schedule, which remains the authority.
| Products | Roots | Months (codes) |
|---|---|---|
| Equity index | ES, MES, NQ, MNQ, RTY, M2K, YM, MYM | H M U Z |
| Treasuries | ZB, UB, TN, ZN, ZF, ZT | H M U Z |
| Currencies | 6E, 6B, 6J, 6A, 6C, 6S, 6N, M6E, M6B | H M U Z |
| Energy | CL, MCL, QM, NG, MNG, RB, HO, BZ | All twelve |
| Gold | GC, MGC | G J M Q V Z |
| Silver, copper | SI, SIL, HG, MHG | H K N U Z |
| Platinum / palladium | PL / PA | F J N V / H M U Z |
| Corn, wheat, oats | ZC, ZW, ZO | H K N U Z |
| Soybeans | ZS | F H K N Q U X |
| Soybean meal and oil | ZM, ZL | F H K N Q U V Z |
| Rough rice | ZR | F H K N U X |
| Live cattle / lean hogs / feeder cattle | LE / HE / GF | G J M Q V Z / G J K M N Q V Z / F H J K Q U V X |
| CME crypto | BTC, MBT, ETH, MET | All twelve |
Why the cycle matters
The cycle sets the rhythm of every roll-related problem. ES rolls four times a year, CL twelve times, so a three-year backtest crosses 4 × 3 = 12 roll boundaries on ES and 12 × 3 = 36 on CL. Each boundary is a point where the contract changes, prices jump by the calendar spread and session-based levels stop carrying over.
The cycle also explains apparent gaps in the calendar. Gold's active months skip the odd months, so after the August contract the next one in the cycle is October. On 3 August 2026 Senzoukria's calendar computed GCV6, not GCQ6, because the August contract had already passed its roll date and the next month in the cycle is V.
In Senzoukria
The symbol picker computes each product's front month from these months and from the product's expiry rule when the dialog opens, and during the roll window it also lists the expiring contract with an 'exp DD/MM' badge. A root that is not in the catalogue gets no computed front month at all, because the application has no credible calendar for it.
Common mistakes
- Assuming every product rolls quarterly because ES does.
- Looking for a September gold contract with volume when the active cycle goes from August to October.
- Treating a thinly listed month outside the active cycle as the front month because it is nearest on the calendar.
Related
- Futures month codes
- Quarterly expiry
- Contract roll
- Last trading day
- Contract specifications and expiry rules
In the same section
- Back month
- First notice day
- Local cache
- Liquidity wall
- Long/short ratio
- Liquidity tracker
- Lookahead bias
- Liquidity sweep
This page in other languages
Frequently asked questions
- Does a monthly product like crude oil need to be rolled every month?
- Yes, if you follow the active contract. Each crude contract stops trading in the month before its delivery month, so the contract carrying the volume changes every month and a chart or a position held past that point has to move to the next one.
- Why does the picker jump from gold August to gold October?
- Because the catalogue's active cycle for gold is February, April, June, August, October and December. Other months may be listed by the exchange but are not the contracts the volume moves to.