Futures Trading Hours and Order Types: Sessions, Settlement Times and Stops

Most major US futures contracts trade electronically on CME Globex for nearly 24 hours a day, from Sunday evening to Friday afternoon, with a short break each day. Each trading day has an official settlement time, a window of a minute or two when the exchange fixes the daily settlement price used for margin, and that window is usually well before the electronic session closes.

In short: A futures “trading day” usually starts the evening before the calendar date it is named after. E-mini S&P 500 futures trade from 5:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Central Time, Sunday to Friday, and settle on trades between 2:59:30 and 3:00:00 p.m. CT. Grain futures have two sessions with a pause in the morning. The main order types on Globex are limit orders, market orders with protection, and two kinds of stop order: stop-limit and stop with protection. A stop order is a trigger, not a guarantee: in a fast or gapping market it can fill well beyond your stop price, or not at all.

Why futures trade almost around the clock

Futures prices respond to news from everywhere: Asian and European stock markets, OPEC meetings, central bank decisions, weather in Brazil. Exchanges extended electronic trading so that hedgers and traders can react when the news happens rather than waiting for a US morning open. The exchanges themselves are introduced in how futures exchanges work.

The CFTC staff report on the April 2020 oil market describes the pattern for crude oil: the trading day for WTI “is nearly 24 hours, Sunday through Friday,” and the April 20, 2020 session “actually began at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time … on Sunday, April 19.”

The trading day versus the calendar day

This is the most common source of confusion. A trade made at 7:00 p.m. CT on a Tuesday evening belongs to Wednesday’s trade date. Margin, profit and loss, and statements are all organised by trade date, not by the clock.

So, for a typical CME equity index contract:

Clock time (CT)	Belongs to
Sunday 5:00 p.m. to Monday 4:00 p.m.	Monday’s trading day
Monday 4:00 to 5:00 p.m.	Daily break
Monday 5:00 p.m. to Tuesday 4:00 p.m.	Tuesday’s trading day

Sessions and settlement times for selected contracts

Hours change from time to time, and holidays shorten sessions, so check the exchange’s current calendar. As of November 2026:

Contract	Electronic hours (Central Time)	Daily settlement window
E-mini S&P 500 (CME)	Sun to Fri, 5:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., with a 60-minute daily break	2:59:30 to 3:00:00 p.m.
Corn (CBOT)	Sun to Fri, 7:00 p.m. to 7:45 a.m.; Mon to Fri, 8:30 a.m. to 1:20 p.m.	1:14 to 1:15 p.m.
WTI crude oil (NYMEX)	Sun to Fri, 5:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., with a 60-minute daily break	1:28 to 1:30 p.m. (2:28 to 2:30 p.m. Eastern)

The settlement price is usually a volume-weighted average of trades in that short window, not the last trade of the session. For E-mini S&P 500 futures, CME calculates the VWAP of the lead month between 2:59:30 and 3:00:00 p.m. CT and rounds it to the nearest 0.25 index point. Other months are settled from calendar spread trades relative to the lead month. Why this price matters so much is covered in the settlement price glossary entry.

A practical consequence: if you look at a chart at 3:45 p.m. CT, the “close” on the chart may differ from the official settlement used for your margin.

Liquidity is not the same all day

Nearly 24-hour trading does not mean equal liquidity all day. For US equity index and energy futures, volume is typically highest during US daytime hours and around key releases. Overnight, the order book is thinner, so a given order moves the price more. Deferred contract months are usually much less liquid than the front month at every hour.

Scheduled reports concentrate activity too. Grain markets react to USDA crop reports, crude oil to the weekly US inventory data from the Energy Information Administration, and interest rate and equity index futures to employment, inflation, and central bank announcements. In the seconds around a release, the order book can empty out and refill at a new level, which is when market orders and stops are most likely to fill at unexpected prices.

Canadian traders face the same clock. CME and ICE contracts follow the schedules above regardless of where you live, while Montreal Exchange contracts such as S&P/TSX 60 index futures have their own hours, published by the exchange.

Order types on CME Globex

CME Group’s documentation for Globex lists these core order types for futures:

Order type	What it does	Main risk
Limit	Buy at or below, or sell at or above, a stated price	May never fill
Market with protection	Fills at the best available prices, but only within a “protection” range set by the exchange; any remainder rests as a limit order at the protection price	May partly fill and then rest unfilled
Stop-limit	When the market trades at or through the trigger price, a limit order is entered at your limit price	Can be skipped entirely in a gap
Stop with protection	When triggered, enters a market order that can only fill within a protection range from the trigger	Fills can be well beyond the trigger, up to the protection limit

Two details are worth noticing. First, Globex does not accept a pure unlimited market order for futures; it adds protection points so an order cannot run through an empty book to an absurd price. CME’s documentation describes protection points as typically about half of a contract’s “non-reviewable range” and adjusts them with market conditions. Second, plain “stop market” orders entered through a broker are either converted to stop with protection on Globex or held by the broker’s own system and released as market orders. Ask your broker which.

Orders also carry a time in force: day orders expire at the end of the trading session, while good-till-cancelled (GTC) orders persist until filled or cancelled. Many brokers also offer synthetic order types that live on their servers rather than at the exchange.

Trading at settlement (TAS)

Some contracts, including WTI crude oil, allow trading at settlement: you agree to trade at that day’s settlement price, or a few ticks above or below it, before the settlement price is known. The CFTC staff report notes that TAS has been available in crude oil since 2001. Funds that need to match a benchmark settlement often use it.

Worked example: a stop order in a gap

This uses the real E-mini S&P 500 spec: $50 times the index, tick 0.25 points worth $12.50. Prices are illustrative.

A trader holds one long E-mini contract. The market closes Friday at 5,020, and the trader leaves a sell stop at 5,000 to limit losses. Over the weekend, bad news breaks. On Sunday evening the market opens at 4,960, below the stop.

With a stop with protection: the stop triggers immediately at the open. The resulting market order fills at the best price available within the protection range, say 4,960.

Expected exit: 5,000
Actual exit: 4,960
Slippage: 40 points x $50 = $2,000 (160 ticks x $12.50)
Total loss from Friday’s close: 60 points x $50 = $3,000, not the $1,000 the trader may have planned for

With a stop-limit at 5,000 / 4,995: the stop triggers, but the limit price of 4,995 is above the market. The order rests unfilled. If the market keeps falling, the position stays open and the loss keeps growing.

Neither order type is “better.” One controls the price and risks not getting out; the other gets out and risks a bad price. And if the market is locked at a price limit, neither will fill until trading resumes, as described in limit moves and circuit breakers.

What can go wrong

Gaps: markets can open far from the prior close after weekends, holidays, or overnight news. Stops do not protect against gaps.
Thin overnight books: orders placed when liquidity is low can move the price against you.
Settlement versus last trade: margin is based on the official settlement price, which may differ from the price on your screen at the end of the day.
Wrong trade date assumptions: an evening trade belongs to the next day’s statement.
Halts and price limits: in extreme moves, trading can pause or lock, and orders queue.
Holiday schedules: early closes and late opens can catch out GTC orders.
Broker-side orders: if your stop lives on your broker’s server, it depends on that system working during a fast market.

The short version

Futures trade almost 24 hours, Sunday to Friday, but each trading day starts the previous evening and is anchored by a short official settlement window that determines margin. Liquidity varies a lot through the day and across contract months. On CME Globex the core order types are limit, market with protection, stop-limit, and stop with protection. Stops are triggers, not guarantees: in a gap, a stop with protection can fill far from your price, and a stop-limit may not fill at all.