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When you name a market in chat, AskFutures looks it up in a fixed table of contract specs — the tick size, the dollar value of a tick, the trading session, the roll schedule, and more. Those specs are what let it turn “use a $400 stop” into an exact price distance, and what make a backtest’s dollar P&L correct rather than approximate. This page explains how AskFutures models an instrument, so the rules you describe behave the way you expect.

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Symbols and roots

You refer to a market by its root symbol — a short code like ES, CL, or MNQ. That’s all you need to type; AskFutures resolves it to the full contract spec behind the scenes. A root names the contract family (E-mini S&P 500, Crude Oil), not one specific expiry. AskFutures always trades the continuous front-month series for that root, so you never pick a calendar month by hand.
“Symbol” is overloaded. Out in the world the same instrument has several codes — an exchange symbol, a data-vendor symbol, a broker symbol. In AskFutures you only ever use the root (ES, MNQ, GC). When the docs or the strategy card say “symbol,” that’s what they mean.

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Supported markets

AskFutures covers CME Group futures only — CME, CBOT, NYMEX, and COMEX — about 74 symbols across these asset classes:
Asset classRoots
Equity indicesES NQ YM RTY EMD + micros MES MNQ MYM M2K
International indicesDAX FTSE NKD NIY STOX
EnergyCL BZ NG HO RB + micros MCL MNG
MetalsGC SI HG PA PL + micros MGC MHG SIL
GrainsZC ZW ZS ZL ZM + micros MZC MZW MZL MZM
RatesZB ZN ZF ZT UB TN BOBL BUND GILT
FX6E 6B 6J 6A 6C 6M 6N 6S + micros M6A M6B M6E
CryptoBTC ETH + micros MBT MET MXP
LivestockHE LE
SoftsCC CT KC SB
VolatilityVX
Not sure of a root? Just describe the market in plain words — “Micro Nasdaq”, “crude oil”, “the 10-year note” — and AskFutures will pick the right symbol and tell you which one it used.

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Micro vs. full-size

Many index, energy, metal, and FX markets come in two sizes:
  • Full-size — the standard contract (ES, NQ, GC, CL).
  • Micro — a fractional-size version of the same market, prefixed with M (MES, MNQ, MGC, MCL). Micros track the same prices and tick in the same increments; only the dollars-per-tick differ.
The two trade at the same price and tick size, but a micro’s dollar value is a fraction of its parent — so the same move means a smaller P&L (and a smaller margin). Micros are the easy way to test an idea at a size that won’t dominate your account. The default micro/full-size commission also reflects this split (see is the backtest real?).

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Continuous contracts and the front month

A futures contract expires. To backtest years of history, AskFutures uses a back-adjusted continuous contract: the front-month contract spliced forward through each roll, with the price levels adjusted at each splice so the gaps between expiring and new contracts don’t create fake jumps in P&L. What this means for you:
  • You get one long, gap-free price series per root — ideal for indicators and multi-year backtests.
  • Because levels are back-adjusted, absolute historical prices can differ from what printed live on a given day, but the bar-to-bar moves (and therefore your P&L) are correct.

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Ticks, points, and value

Three numbers turn a price move into dollars. Using the E-mini S&P 500 (ES):
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Tick size
0.25 (ES)
The smallest price increment the market moves in. ES ticks in quarters of a point.
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Tick value
$12.50 (ES)
The dollar value of one tick, per contract. One ES tick = $12.50.
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Full point value
$50 (ES)
The dollar value of a 1.0 move in price, per contract. Computed as FullPointValue = TickValue / TickSize — for ES, 12.50/0.25=∗∗12.50 / 0.25 = **50**.
The full point value is the key to dollar-based rules. When you say “use a $400 stop”, AskFutures converts dollars to a price distance with this number:
Dollar stop -> price distance
price distance = dollar amount / full point value
$400 stop on ES = $400 / $50 = 8.00 points
So a 400‘ES‘stopsits8fullpointsawayfromentry;thesame400 `ES` stop sits 8 full points away from entry; the same 400 stop on the micro MES (full point value $5) sits 80 points away, because each point is worth one-tenth as much.
“Point” is overloaded too. A price point is one full unit of the instrument’s price (worth the full point value above). An indicator period — as in “a 14-period RSI” — is a count of bars and has nothing to do with price. We say point for price and period for indicator length to keep them apart.

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Example contract specs

A few real contracts, to show how the pieces fit (full point value = tick value / tick size):
SymbolMarketTick sizeTick valueFull point value
ESE-mini S&P 5000.25$12.50$50
MESMicro E-mini S&P 5000.25$1.25$5
MNQMicro E-mini Nasdaq-1000.25$0.50$2
GCGold0.10$10.00$100
CLCrude Oil0.01$10.00$1,000
Notice MES and ES share the same tick size (0.25) but MES is one-tenth the value — that’s the micro relationship. And CL’s small tick size (0.01) gives it a large full point value: a 1.00moveincrudeisworth1.00 move in crude is worth 1,000 per contract.

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Margin (informational)

Each contract carries an initial and maintenance margin — roughly, the capital a broker requires to hold the position. AskFutures stores these so you can see the rough capital footprint of a market, and they’re useful when sizing a test on a micro vs. its full-size parent.
Margin is informational context only. The backtest does not model margin calls or liquidations — it assumes each signaled trade is taken. Treat margin as a sanity check on size, not as a constraint the simulator enforces.

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Contract roll

Because the continuous series rolls from one expiring contract to the next, every bar knows how close it is to that event. Two values are available to your rules:
  • Days to roll — bars until AskFutures rolls to the next contract.
  • Days to expiration — bars until the current contract expires.
You can use either in plain English — “don’t open new trades in the last 3 days before roll”, or “flatten everything two days before expiration” — to avoid trading through the noisy period around a roll.

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Trading sessions and daily bars

Every market has a defined trading session (a start and end time in its home exchange’s clock). This matters in two places:
  • Session-anchored rules like opening-range breakouts or “first trade of the day” use the session start, not midnight.
  • Daily (1d) bars are timestamped at the session end. A daily bar represents the whole session’s open/high/low/close, stamped at the moment the session closed — not at 00:00. So when a daily rule “fires today,” it’s using the session you just finished, which keeps multi-timeframe logic honest.
AskFutures offers 1m, 5m, 1h, 1d, and 1w bars. The silent default for a day-trading idea is 1-minute bars, with an end-of-day exit. Say so if you want something else — “use 5-minute bars” or “hold overnight.”
Backtest results are hypothetical and simulated — net of modeled slippage and commission, and computed from back-adjusted continuous prices. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Always test before you trade.

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Next steps

Strategies

The parts every strategy is made of — and how a market fits in.

Is the backtest real?

Why the numbers are reproducible, and exactly what the simulator models.

Risk & trade management

Turn dollar stops and targets into the price distances above.

Build a strategy

Put it together: name a market, describe the idea, run a backtest.