Do you trade CME U.S. futures/indexes like the E-mini S&P 500? Well, it’s time to roll over your contracts again! The official rollover date is Sep. 13, 2018. You may have seen the reminder when starting up NinjaTrader earlier today. The NinjaTrader platform requires that you manually roll over your contracts. Fortunately, the steps are rather straightforward. We will be using thhe E-mini (ES in NinjaTrader) as an example).
Before we continue, just an update from one of our Mentorship students who found success when she traded using real money…
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Back to the rollover…
Firstly, this rollover from ES 09-18 to ES 12-18 occurs on Sep. 13, 2018. If you try to roll over on Sep. 12, 2018, you probably won’t be able to select ES 12-18 as an option. On Sep. 13, 2018, before you start trading the ES, it may be wise to roll over your contracts. Some traders wait even longer, preferring to switch once the volatility has “transferred” to the new contract period. This usually occurs within a few days after the official rollover date. These traders prefer to trade whatever contract period has the most liquidity. We’ll leave it up to you. If you want to monitor ES volume, here’s the CME page to do it. Don’t wait until the actual ES expiration date, which is Sep. 21, 2018. See all future roll and expiration dates on this CME page. The next time you’ll need to roll over is Dec. 21, 2018.
How to Roll Over Contracts in NinjaTrader
1. In NinjaTrader’s Control Center, go to Tools > Database Management. The Database window should appear.
2. Providing you are following these steps on or after Sep., 13, 2018, you should see row for the ES and possibily other markets. NinjaTrader automatically detects which markets (aka instruments) need to be rolled over and lists them here. All you need to do is click the Rollover button and close the window. NinjaTrader will roll over everything listed.
3. Your ES chart(s) may automatically switch over to the ES 12-18. Check the top-left area of the chart window and see if ES 12-18 is displayed rather than the old ES 09-18.
…that’s pretty much it!
