Futures Trading

Auto-Tuple Generation

The futures.make_tuple(...) method automatically constructs a valid instrument tuple for any Futures contract available on Interactive Brokers, using the information available via the contract specification retrieval functionality.

# strategy.oy
...

from qtpylib import futures

if __name__ == "__main__":
    strategy = MyStrategy(
        instruments = [
            futures.make_tuple("ES", 201612),
            futures.make_tuple("CL", 201612),
            futures.make_tuple("GBL", 201612, exchange="DTB")
        ],
        ...
    )

...

---

Most Traded Contract Expiration

If you want to always trade the most active Futures contract (based on the previous day’s volume and open interest), you can do so by using the futures.get_active_contract() function to construct your IB contract tuples specified in your algo.

# strategy.oy
...

from qtpylib import futures

if __name__ == "__main__":
    # get most active ES contract
    ACTIVE_MONTH = futures.get_active_contract("ES")

    strategy = MyStrategy(
        instruments = [ ("ES", "FUT", "GLOBEX", "USD", ACTIVE_MONTH, 0.0, "") ],
        ...
    )

    ...

You can now achieve the same functionality by using a simple shorthand as the instrument symbol. In this case

# strategy.oy
...

# from qtpylib import futures
# ^^ no need to import this when using this method

strategy = MyStrategy(
    instruments = [ "FUT.ES" ],
)

...

Note

This functionality currently only works for the CME Group’s futures (inc. CME, GLOBEX, CBOT, NYMEX, and COMEX).

---

Contract Specification

When you want to know a Futures contract’s margin requirements, you can call futures.get_ib_futures(...) to get that information. New data is fetched from IB id cache file doesn’t exist or if it’s older than 24 hours.

# strategy.oy
...

from qtpylib import futures

def on_bar(self, instrument):
    contract_spec = futures.get_ib_futures("NQ", "GLOBEX")

    if contract_spec['intraday_initial'] > self.account['AvailableFunds']:
        print("Not enough funds to trade this contract")
        return


"""
contract_spec returns a dict with the following data:

{
    'class': 'NQ',
    'currency': 'USD',
    'description': 'E-mini NASDAQ 100 Futures',
    'exchange': 'GLOBEX',
    'intraday_initial': 2250.0,
    'intraday_maintenance': 1800.0,
    'overnight_initial': 4500.0,
    'overnight_maintenance': 3600.0,
    'symbol': 'NQ'
}

"""

* To get the maximum number of contracts you can trade, based on your account balance and contract requirements, use instrument.get_margin_max_contracts() from within your strategies.