Reading a contract spec before trading it

The commodities track verified its contract units against the exchange's own pages and made a doctrine of it. Futures is the track where that doctrine becomes the daily method - because here, the spec is the instrument.

The lines that set your arithmetic

• The multiplier or unit count: what one contract controls - the notional input, and the first number checked, because everything downstream is wrong if it is.
• Tick size and tick value: the price grid and its money step - contracts on the same underlying family can differ fourfold here, and 'a few ticks' is a budget line only after this row is read.
• Listed months and their codes: which promises exist, and the letter-code convention module 2 teaches the board in.
• Settlement type: cash or physical - which of lesson 1's families this promise belongs to, and therefore what its expiry can demand of you.
• The dates: last trading day, and for physical contracts the notice machinery - the commodities calendar's teeth, printed per contract.

Why the habit cannot be outsourced

Platforms display some of this; they also default, abbreviate and occasionally lag a spec change. The exchange's page is the primary source, it is free, and it is one page - the five-minute read that prevents the classic futures errors: sizing on the wrong multiplier, budgeting ticks at the wrong value, holding a physical contract into its notice period by surprise. Every one of those errors is a spec line unread, and every one is expensive out of proportion to the five minutes.

The specs discipline, generalised

The commodities doctrine - exchange-verified numbers, never memory - now covers an asset class where every underlying arrives pre-packaged in specs. The habit to install: a contract is not tradeable until its spec has been read this month - specs do change - and its multiplier, tick value, settlement family and dates are written where the plan can see them. Module 3 will price the costs off these numbers; module 4 will size off them; module 8 will roll off them. One page, upstream of everything.