Decoding futures symbols

If you’ve traded stocks, you’re familiar with ticker symbols—the short series of letters that identify a company. For example, Apple’s ticker is AAPL and Nvidia’s ticker is NVDA. Futures are a bit different because they have expiration dates. Specifically, a futures symbol includes a root ticker for the underlying asset and additional symbols for the expiration—usually the month and year. Understanding how to read these symbols will help you search for and identify a specific futures contract to research or trade.

At first glance, futures symbols may seem complex; but there’s both a rhyme and reason. In fact, many symbols originated on the trading floor and were designed to convey maximum information with the fewest characters. The same methodology migrated over to the electronic environment. The characters within the code varies by futures contract, but the template is the same:

Forward slash (/) + Root symbol + Expiration month + Expiration year

Example

The symbol for the E-mini S&P 500 futures contract expiring in December of 2024 is /ESZ24. The forward slash indicates that it’s a futures contract. ‘ES’ is the root symbol for the E-mini S&P 500. The letter Z denotes that the contract expires in December. And finally, 24 is the last 2 digits of the year that this contract expires: 2024.

Each futures contract has a root symbol. No matter which expiration month or year you choose to trade, the forward slash and the root symbol will be constant across all contracts for that product. When traders refer to futures contracts, they often say the root symbol and leave out the rest of the code. For example, a crude oil trader might say “I trade CL.” A gold trader will say, “I have a position in GC.” Like stock symbols, the root symbol of a futures contract code gets the most attention, and you’ll be amazed at how quickly you’ll memorize and recall these symbols.

Many brokerages display a forward slash (/) at the start of the contract code. This helps to keep you from accidentally trading a stock, when you intend to trade a futures contract. Because futures contracts trade in a different market than stocks, it’s possible that a futures contract’s root symbol and a company's stock ticker symbol are the same 2 or 3 letters.

For example, the root symbol of the E-mini S&P 500 futures contract is ES. ES is also the stock ticker symbol for the company Eversource Energy. CL is the root symbol for crude oil futures, but it’s also the ticker symbol for the consumer staples company, Colgate-Palmolive. To ensure you’re viewing and trading a futures contract, be sure to add a forward slash (/) before the futures symbol.

After the forward slash and root symbol you’ll see a single letter and 2 digits. The letter corresponds to the expiration month and the 2 digits are the expiration year. Using the example at the beginning of the article, the E-mini S&P 500 futures expiring in December of 2024 has a symbol of /ESZ24. The letter Z corresponds to the December expiration month. The number 24 is the expiration year—2024.

With futures, each calendar month expiration is identified by a single letter, as in the list below:

• January - F
• February - G
• March - H
• April - J
• May - K
• June - M
• July - N
• August - Q
• September - U
• October - V
• November - X
• December - Z

Keep in mind, not all futures expire monthly. For example, stock index futures only have quarterly expirations (March - H, June - M, September - U, and December - Z). But some futures, like crude oil, have expirations each month.

There’s a notable exception to the symbol methodology mentioned above: weekly futures. For example, Bitcoin Friday Futures (/BFF) have an expiration every Friday and are listed for two consecutive weeks at a time. To differentiate two contracts that might be expiring in the same month, the code also includes a number for the specific day of the expiration.

Here’s an example: /BFFV2411. It’s for the Bitcoin Friday Futures that expire on October 11th, 2024.

• Root symbol: /BFF
• October: V
• 2024: 24
• Day: 11

You can view a list of all of the tradable futures through Lists and add futures contracts to your watchlist, just like a stock or option. The easiest way to view a specific futures contract is to use the search bar and type in the name of the contract (for example: Gold, Nasdaq, Bitcoin). Once you learn the root symbol of your favorite contracts, you can type a forward slash ( / ) into the search bar followed by the root symbol. Most futures traders search for the active contract because that often has the most liquidity. The search results show the active contract by default to make it easy for you.

A futures symbol represents a specific futures contract. Although the format is slightly more complicated than a stock symbol, once you get familiar with the forward slash, root symbols, and the letters and numbers that represent expiration month and year, you’ll be on your way.