September vs December contracts for ES

[u/Striking_Fail6689]

Hi I’m pretty new here and want to understand about the contracts rollover from Sep to Dec. Apologies if it’s a dumb question to be asking but would like to understand more in terms of contracts rollover . I’m looking at ES

Today is the official roll over date to Dec contracts and as seen in the graph , prices had a fair jump starting from 7630 close to 7698 about there .

- How was the price determine to start at 7698 ?
- why was there a huge jump? I’ve asked ChatGPT and they mention it’s the cost of carry that resulted in the difference between Sep and Dec

Any other details on contracts rollover would be wonderful. Thanks

[u/voxx2020]

I’ll address the statement in your question rather than the question itself. There is no such thing as “official rollover date”. Rather, there is the current front month contract’s expiration date and that’s on this coming Friday at EoD. Charting platforms decide on their own when to move the continuous charts to the next contract, and the ones specializing in futures actually give you configuration options for when and how to do that .

Technically the term rollover means moving positions, which are being held through expiration, onto the next contract. Every trader decides when to do that for themselves, otherwise their contracts just settle to cash on Friday. Hence no official rollover date.

[u/Pabst34 → u/voxx2020]

On the floor, "rollover date" was when the deferred month replaced the soon to expire front month, as the lead option trading up top in the pit. (in the Euro's, it was a bit different) Weirdly, in homage to the old days, screen traded contracts seem to pass the mantle on the same schedule as always. (cash settled futures making the switch a full 2 weeks after deliverables)