Reference
Reading Continuous Futures in TradingView: Roll Gaps & Back-Adjustment
Search a futures instrument and you'll see a code with an exclamation mark: ES1!, CL2!. Understand the naming and the roll mechanism, and futures charts stop misleading you.
Code convention
| Notation | Meaning |
|---|---|
ES1! | S&P 500 futures front continuous contract (nearest/most active month) |
ES2! | Second continuous contract (next expiry) |
ESM2026 | A single contract for a specific expiry (June 2026) |
Roll gap and back-adjustment
A continuous contract is stitched from expiring contracts; old and new carry a spread, so the chart shows a jump where "no trade ever happened." Trading it as a real gap is the classic trap. Chart settings offer back-adjustment:
- Adjust on: candle patterns stay continuous, good for technicals and backtests, but historical prices are no longer the actual traded prices;
- Adjust off: prices are real, good for absolute historical levels, at the cost of a false gap at each stitch.
Practice: for patterns and backtests use
1! with back-adjust on; near delivery, volume migrates, so intraday traders get a cleaner picture on the specific-month contract; for calendar spreads open two charts comparing 1! and 2! — desktop linked windows are made for this.