About TickValue

TickValue exists because the most common arithmetic mistake in futures trading is not a maths error — it is a unit error. Traders lose money sizing a position against the wrong tick value, or reading a treasury quote of 110-16 as 110.16.

What this site is

A reference library. Every contract specification on this site is a published fact: contract unit, minimum price fluctuation, the dollar value of one tick, and the delivery months. Alongside the data are calculators that convert a price move into cash, and guides that explain the conventions that trip people up.

What this site is not

• Not a signal service. We do not publish trade recommendations, targets or "setups".
• Not a broker comparison. We do not rank or review firms.
• Not investment advice. Nothing here tells you what to buy, sell or hold.

Where the data comes from

Specifications are compiled from the contract specifications published by CME Group (CME, CBOT, NYMEX, COMEX), ICE and Eurex. Values are cross-checked against independent sources, and where two sources disagree the exchange's own documentation wins.

Margin requirements are deliberately not published here. Margin is set by the exchange and revised without notice, and every broker adds its own buffer. A number without a date and a broker name is not information — so the margin calculator asks for your broker's live figure instead.

Why the numbers are worth checking

Small errors in a tick value scale directly into position size. On gold, the E-mini contract QO is half the size of GC but has a larger tick value, because its minimum increment is wider. On treasuries, ZF and ZT both have a $7.8125 tick but completely different fractions — 1/128 on a $100,000 face against 1/256 on a $200,000 face. Neither pattern is guessable. Both are checked in the specification table.

How to use it

1. Look up the contract in the specification table.
2. Note the tick size and the tick value — not just the contract unit.
3. Work out your stop in ticks from a structural level on the chart.
4. Divide your risk budget by (ticks × tick value) to get position size.
5. Check the result against your broker's margin requirement — the smaller of the two limits wins.

Corrections

If you find an error, please say so through the contact page and include the contract and the source you are comparing against. Corrections are made to the data, not to the reasoning — if a published figure is wrong it gets fixed and the fix is described.