Lumen Futures Blog
Markets & Contracts
Contract specs, roll dates, expiration, settlement and price limits: how the futures contracts themselves work.
Markets & ContractsOctober 23, 2026Futures vs Options: What Is the Difference?
A futures contract obliges both sides to perform at the agreed price; an option gives its buyer a right and leaves the obligation with the writer, and that difference runs through cost at entry, maximum loss, exercise, expiry and tax class.
- Markets & ContractsOctober 16, 2026
What Is the Settlement Price in Futures Trading?
The settlement price is the daily figure a clearing organisation uses to clear trades and settle accounts between its members, computed by the exchange from a designated closing period, which is why it can differ from the session's last trade.
- Markets & ContractsSeptember 27, 2026
Futures Month Codes: What the Letter in a Contract Symbol Means
The letter in a futures symbol is the delivery month, F for January through Z for December, and this covers how the rest of the symbol is built around it and why the same contract can appear in more than one symbol format.
- Markets & ContractsSeptember 26, 2026
Contango vs Backwardation: What the Shape of the Futures Curve Means
Contango is a market where each later delivery month is priced above the one in front of it, backwardation is the reverse, and the CFTC glossary names the upward-sloping case after the cost of carrying the underlying.
- Markets & ContractsSeptember 19, 2026
Holding a Futures Contract to Expiration: Cash or Delivery?
Hold a futures contract into expiry and it either settles in cash or obliges you to make or take delivery. How first notice day, broker close-outs and April 2020's negative oil fit in.
- Markets & ContractsSeptember 18, 2026
Trading Futures During News Events: What Happens When the Number Prints
The big US economic releases are published at fixed, pre-announced times, and a Federal Reserve study found price jumps more frequent in S&P 500 and Treasury bond futures on announcement days than on quiet ones.
- Markets & ContractsAugust 31, 2026
When Do Futures Contracts Roll Over?
Equity index futures roll on a fixed quarterly schedule, and CME sets the roll date as the Monday before the third Friday of March, June, September and December.
- Markets & ContractsAugust 31, 2026
Micro E-mini vs E-mini Futures: $5 vs $50 Per Point
MES is one tenth of ES: $5 per index point against $50, and $1.25 a tick against $12.50. Same index, increment and expiry, so the choice comes down to position size.