futures expiry dates

how do you know wat expiry data to have on your futures symbol.

i was on 6A 03-09 then i changed it to 04-09 and my platform crashed ....i duno wat the fruck is goin on its driving me nuts

and do different symbols have different expires ?

thats why then i should be on 06-09 ...............cheers

wat about oil,gold,s&p500,etc do they roll over every month or quarterly too ?

price777999 said:

thats why then i should be on 06-09 ...............cheers

wat about oil,gold,s&p500,etc do they roll over every month or quarterly too ?

Click to expand...

ES (Mini S&P500) contracts have designated codes to indicate their month of expiry:

H - March
M - June
U - September
Z - December


Settlement is the 3rd Friday of that month.

Eg/ If you were trading the ESM9 (June expiry 2009) it would need to be settled on the 3rd Friday in June which is the 19th. It does not remain the front month until this time! Usually around the 11th-12th the next contract becomes the front month

It is all here:

E-mini S&P 500

As NT says, many rollover on a quarterly date. Examples are the major US indexes, the Aussie SPI, the Fx futures contracts.

In asia most of the index futures rollover every month (HSI, STI, HHI) on the day before the last friday of the month.

Metals, oil, energies frequently have unusual months. Also you will sometimes find that the next contract is NOT the most active one. I recall one year where the december contract was the most active contract all year for something I was trading --- which makes rolling over easy

Your broker will have contract data that includes rollover months and dates. If they don't you can find it on the Interactivebrokers.com website.

Stick to the quarterlies HMUZ;

Be aware that different contracts do expire at different times (e.g. Bunds / Tnotes and European / US index futures)...

Moreover, make sure you understand how the process works - are your futures cash settled or do you actually have to deliver? When exactly do they expire? For instance, with US10yr contracts, you can be summoned to deliver the underlying AT ANY TIME DURING THE EXPIRY MONTH.

Seriously dude, do your homework.

There's all sorts of fine print, as both MrG and GJ have mentioned. Even for cash-settled futures, there's little things to consider.

For bond futures, as MrG said (I think he's slightly wrong, though), you can be delivered any one of the bonds in the basket starting from the first notice date. If you're short, it's up to you when to deliver, but if you're still short when the future expires, you better pony up.

great info thanks everyone ! apart from GammaJammer ...totaly useless post