Contract months and symbols

A stock never expires. A futures contract always does. That is why futures symbols carry an extra code at the end: it tells you which contract you are looking at. Read it wrong and you can end up trading the wrong one.

Only four months a year

ES, NQ, MES, and MNQ are listed on a quarterly cycle. There is one contract for each of these months:

• March
• June
• September
• December

Several of these quarterly contracts are listed at the same time, stretching out into future years. The one closest to expiring is often called the front month.

The month codes

Every calendar month has a one-letter code. For the quarterly index futures, you only need four:

Memory trick: the four letters come in calendar order, March to December, and the first letter of each word in this silly sentence gives them to you:

Hey, My Uncle’s Zebra.

Hey = H = March. My = M = June. Uncle’s = U = September. Zebra = Z = December. Say it once or twice and it sticks. (If a different silly sentence works better for you, use that.)

The other eight months have codes too (for example F for January), and you will see them on other futures markets. For ES, NQ, MES, and MNQ, it is always H, M, U, or Z.

Reading a full symbol

A full futures symbol has three parts:

product code + month code + year digit

Take NQZ6:

• NQ: E-mini Nasdaq-100
• Z: December
• 6: 2026

So NQZ6 is the E-mini Nasdaq-100 contract that expires in December 2026. MESH7 would be the Micro E-mini S&P 500 expiring in March 2027.

CME notes that codes can look a little different from one platform to another, so check how yours displays them. The idea stays the same: the letter after the product code is the month, and the number is the year.

Expiration

Each contract stops trading on a set day. For all four of these contracts, CME’s specification says trading ends at 8:30 a.m. CT (9:30 a.m. ET) on the third Friday of the contract month.

What happens to anyone still holding a position? ES, NQ, MES, and MNQ are cash settled. Open positions are closed out with a cash credit or debit based on the final settlement value. No stocks are delivered. (You met this idea in Lesson 4.)

Rollover

Most traders never hold a contract to expiration. As the expiration date gets close, trading activity shifts to the next quarterly contract. Traders watch the volume in both the expiring month and the next month, and switch when the next month becomes the busier one.

Moving a position from the expiring contract to the next one is called rolling over, or the roll. A trader who is long 2 contracts of the September month would sell those 2 September contracts and buy 2 December contracts at the same time.

For a beginner who closes every trade the same day, rollover mostly means one thing: make sure your chart and your order ticket are on the same, active contract month. Trading an old month by accident is a classic beginner mistake.

Key ideas

• ES, NQ, MES, and MNQ trade in a quarterly cycle: March (H), June (M), September (U), December (Z).
• A symbol reads as product, month, year: NQZ6 = E-mini Nasdaq-100, December 2026.
• Trading ends at 8:30 a.m. CT on the third Friday of the contract month, and the contract is cash settled.
• Rolling over means moving from the expiring contract to the next one.