Why H M U Z ?

[andanotherthing]

Anyone know why mar = h
jun = m
sep = u
dec = z

 

[gooseman]

cos that's what it is. every month has a code:

f
g
h
j
k
m
n
q
u
v
x
z

 

[andanotherthing]

not getting off that lightly......you tell me the what not the why ....

 

[gooseman]

just a short hand way of doing things. can't use numbers as it would get confused with the actual price and it's alphabetical (obviously).

 

[Magos]

I will give a hand:

please check the following link: 3 pages

PBS - OPEN OUTCRY: Hand Signals

 

[arabianights]

Reuters Instrument Code - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Far too much information

 

[peto]

Hold
My
Undulating
Zebra

has long been my memory jogger for the yank index futures front months.

 

[gooseman]

if you need a mnemonic to remember 4 months you shouldn't be a trader.

 

[Adamus]

So if January is F, what happened to ABCDE?

 

[Magos]

I think we should all quit our jobs and get black boxes to do everything.
Or maybe is me, in need of vacation

 

[peto]

if you need a mnemonic to remember 4 months you shouldn't be a trader.

Sorry gooseman, don't recall writing that now, suppose I must have. What site is this anyway? Must stop forgetting to take my tablets...

 

[RichardDale]

I heard this explanation from another futures trader and have paraphrased it here.

Before the advent of computerised trading, all futures were traded in pits.

Trading in the pits involves orders being phoned in, written on a piece of paper, given to a runner and then communicated to the pit trader. In order to give the trader the least possible confusion and quickest reaction/writing time, a standardised abbreviation of the delivery month and commodity was used.

It appears that some intelligence was used so that similar letters were not part of the abbreviation system so that when they were scrawled down there would be no confusion (eg. that's why O and Q do not both exist - they are too similar... similarly I and J). I read somewhere that U and V were distinguished apart by writing a horizontal line through the V.

In options trading, the call symbology is the same as the futures symbology. Puts start at 'A' for January, 'B' for Feb etc. and occupy intervening gaps.

Cheers,
Richard.

 

[readyaimfire]

When futures were traded in pits,orders were not written on a piece of paper,given to a runner then communicated to a pit trader.The order would be phoned through directly by a client to the phone-clerk,relayed via hand signals to the pit trader's 'point' guy or their back-up trader then written on a trading card so it was remembered along with all the other working orders.

The reason you couldn't have A for either January or April was that the contract code of the Bunds was A(when it was traded on the LIFFE floor)therefore a trading card for buying 10 March Bunds from trader XYZ at 110.00 would look like this:

+10 H A 110-00 XYZ

Once the trade was executed the runner would collect the card then type it in through the TRS system.It sounds ancient now but trades that didn't match up correctly were identified through the 'mis-match' system,a job that required good common sense but could be tedious.

 

[gooseman]

V is still written with a line thro it and TRS is still absolutely awful.

 

[sqky]

cos that's what it is. every month has a code:

f
g
h
j
k
m
n
q
u
v
x
z

C = Red march
I = Red June
P = Red Sep
T = Red dec.........I'm sure the missing letters all cover a month too, i just can't remember them.

 

[minime69]

june was index finger pointing down.

 

[minime69]

A= green march
B= green june
D= green sep
E= green dec

i think

 

[martius99]

Hello,

I would like to track e.g. 30 Year US Treasury Bond Future September (U) 2009 (09) Contract which is traded electronicaly (ZB) on CBOT, but I dont know which symbol below I have to pick up?

ZBU09-1.CBT
Thirty-Year US Treasury Bond Fu 138.86 Future CBT
ZBU09-2.CBT
Thirty-Year US Treasury Bond Fu 138.86 Future CBT
ZBU09.CBT
Thirty-Year US Treasury Bond Fu 138.30 Future CBT

Is it possible to explain the symbol (number) following the dash. Thank you in an advance.

Martius

 

[RichardDale]

I assume you are referring to the Yahoo codes for the data:
ZBU09-1.CBT: Summary for Thirty-Year US Treasury Bond Fu - Yahoo! Finance

In general, it's not good to look at the Yahoo codes since they don't update as often as they should. You're looking at the September 2009 US Treasury Bond futures - according to Yahoo its last trade was Dec 18 for all three of the above whereas settlement prices have actually been issue since then.

The settlement price on Dec 18 was 138 and 27.5/32nds so that matches the first two entries.

One is probably floor, one is probably globex and the last is probably "last" traded price or maybe floor+globex combined last traded price.

Given there's so much data missing from Yahoo I'd advise not using them for futures data.

 

[martius99]

First of all thank you for the reply.

In my opinion I dont think that there is floor among the tree ones. ZB means electronic trading surely.

Will you recommend me where to look to obtain free actual futures data? Maybe then I will be able to compare the prices with yahoo and find out the meaning of "-1", "-2" symbols.

Thank you.

Martius

I assume you are referring to the Yahoo codes for the data:
ZBU09-1.CBT: Summary for Thirty-Year US Treasury Bond Fu - Yahoo! Finance

In general, it's not good to look at the Yahoo codes since they don't update as often as they should. You're looking at the September 2009 US Treasury Bond futures - according to Yahoo its last trade was Dec 18 for all three of the above whereas settlement prices have actually been issue since then.

The settlement price on Dec 18 was 138 and 27.5/32nds so that matches the first two entries.

One is probably floor, one is probably globex and the last is probably "last" traded price or maybe floor+globex combined last traded price.

Given there's so much data missing from Yahoo I'd advise not using them for futures data.