Continuous Futures Data
What it is
Futures contracts expire. A December Gold contract stops trading in December and is replaced by the March contract. If you simply concatenate raw contract data, you get artificial price gaps at every rollover — a December contract closing at 2,680 creates a $30 jump that never happened in the market.
Continuous futures solve this by stitching contracts together into a single unbroken price series, adjusting for the price difference at each rollover so the historical data reflects true price movement rather than contract transitions.
Strateda constructs continuous futures data using a front-month anchored, backwards-adjusted methodology — the industry standard for backtesting systematic strategies.
How it works
Roll Calendar
Each futures category has a defined roll schedule — how many days before expiry Strateda switches to the next contract:
| Category | Instruments | Roll (days before expiry) |
|---|---|---|
| Equity indices | ES, NQ, YM | 3 days |
| Metals | MGC, SIL | 28 days |
| Energy | QM | 15 days |
| Crypto | MBT | 6 days |
| FX | M6E, 6B, 6J, 6S | 6 days |
Price Adjustment at Rollover
When the roll date arrives, Strateda calculates the price difference between the expiring contract and the next contract. This difference is applied backwards across all historical data, ensuring the price series is continuous with no artificial jumps.
The result is a front-month anchored series — the most recent prices reflect actual current market prices, while older prices are adjusted to maintain a consistent price history.
Daily Pipeline
The continuous futures database updates once daily at 6:00 AM UTC, incorporating the previous session's data for all 11 CME contracts. Rollovers are handled automatically when a contract's roll date is reached.
Why this matters for backtesting
A strategy backtested on raw contract data will show false signals at every rollover — the price jump triggers crossovers, limit conditions, and stop-losses that would never occur in live trading. Continuous adjusted data eliminates these artifacts, giving you clean, reliable backtesting results across multi-year histories.
Adding new futures instruments
The continuous futures pipeline is designed to be extensible. New CME contracts can be added to the Strateda data library by integrating the instrument into the roll calendar and data pipeline. If you need a futures contract not currently available, contact Strateda support — instruments with sufficient user demand are prioritised for addition.