CME
Live Cattle (LE) Tick Value & Contract Specs
Tick value $10.00 per tick — 40,000 pounds of live cattle.
Live Cattle futures (LE) cover 40,000 pounds, quoted in cents per pound. The tick is 0.025 cents — two and a half thousandths of a cent — worth $10.00 per contract, and a full one-cent move is $400. With cattle near 185 cents, a contract carries about $74,000 of notional.
Two features separate the livestock contracts from everything else on this site. The first is the session: LE trades a single day session, roughly 8:30am to 1:05pm Central, with no overnight market. News that breaks after the close has nowhere to go until the next morning, so opening gaps are a structural feature rather than an occasional event. The second is the daily price limit, which halts trading once the contract moves a set distance from the prior settlement — during disease scares that limit has been hit on consecutive days, leaving positions unable to exit at any price. Cattle fundamentals themselves run on long biological cycles: herd rebuilding takes years, so supply responds slowly and the market trends for extended stretches. Note the cents quoting before sizing; the calculator below is labelled in cents.
- Exchange
- CME
- Contract size
- 40,000 pounds of live cattle
- Tick size
- 0.025
- Tick value
- $10.00
- Point value (multiplier)
- $400
- Trading hours
- Mon–Fri 8:30am–1:05pm CT
- Margin
- Margin varies by broker and can rise around USDA Cattle on Feed reports and disease headlines.
How LE tick value works
Tick value is the dollar amount one futures contract gains or loses when the price moves one minimum increment (one tick).
tick value = tick size × multiplier. For LE, that is 0.025 × $400 = $10.00 per tick, per contract.
One contract represents 40,000 pounds of live cattle. P&L for a move from entry to exit is (exit − entry) ÷ tick size × tick value × contracts.
LE contract months and ticker symbols
A futures ticker is three parts: the root, a one-letter delivery month, and the year. LEZ2026 is the December 2026 LE contract. The month letters skip I and L, which would read as 1 and 7 on a ticker.
| Code | Month | Listed for LE? |
|---|---|---|
| F | January | No |
| G | February | Yes — LEG |
| H | March | No |
| J | April | Yes — LEJ |
| K | May | No |
| M | June | Yes — LEM |
| N | July | No |
| Q | August | Yes — LEQ |
| U | September | No |
| V | October | Yes — LEV |
| X | November | No |
| Z | December | Yes — LEZ |
Which LE contract am I looking at?
Most charts default to the continuous front-month series rather than a dated contract — one stitched-together chart that rolls to the next month as the current one nears expiry. Every platform spells it differently, which is why the same contract appears under so many names.
| Written as | Platform | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| LE1! | TradingView | Continuous front-month contract. "2!" is the next one out, and a dated contract is written in full, e.g. LEZ2026. |
| LE00 | Barchart | Continuous front-month series. "LEZ26" style codes name a specific month and year instead. |
| LEc1 | Refinitiv / Reuters | Continuous front month; c2 is the second month out. |
| /LE | thinkorswim, tastytrade | The leading slash marks it as a future rather than a stock. A specific month is /LEZ26. |
| LE=F | Yahoo Finance | The "=F" suffix denotes the front-month futures series. |
| $LE | StockTwits, social | A cashtag, not an exchange symbol. It usually means the front month, but it is informal and ambiguous. |
A dated code such as LEZ26 always means one specific contract; the continuous forms never do. Check which you are quoting before comparing a price to someone else’s — around a roll they differ.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the tick value for LE?
- $10.00 per tick — a 0.025 tick size × a $400 multiplier (point value).
- What is one LE contract worth?
- One contract represents 40,000 pounds of live cattle. Notional value = price (in cents) × $400; use the tick value calculator with the current price for an exact figure.
- Which exchange lists LE?
- Live Cattle (LE) trades on the CME.
- What are the trading hours for LE?
- Mon–Fri 8:30am–1:05pm CT.
- How much margin do I need to trade LE?
- Margin varies by broker and can rise around USDA Cattle on Feed reports and disease headlines.
- What are the LE contract months?
- LE lists February, April, June, August, October and December.
- What does LEZ2026 mean?
- It is one specific LE contract: the root LE, the delivery-month code Z, and the year. Z is December, so LEZ2026 is the December 2026 contract. The codes run F G H J K M N Q U V X Z for January through December — I and L are skipped because they read as 1 and 7 on a ticker.
- What is LE00, LE1! or /LE?
- All three name the same thing: the continuous front-month LE contract, written differently by different platforms. Barchart uses LE00, TradingView LE1!, thinkorswim and tastytrade /LE, Yahoo Finance LE=F, and LE on social media is usually written $LE. None of them is a separate instrument — each stitches together whichever dated contract is currently the front month.
- How is P&L calculated for LE?
- P&L = (exit price − entry price) ÷ 0.025 tick size × $10.00 tick value × number of contracts. Use the tick value calculator to compute this directly.
More futures contract specs
- HE — Lean HogsTick value $10.00 · CME
- ZC — CornTick value $12.50 · CBOT
- ZS — SoybeansTick value $12.50 · CBOT
- ZW — Chicago SRW WheatTick value $12.50 · CBOT
See all futures contract specs or use the futures contract & tick value calculator with any symbol or custom specs.
Specs last reviewed 2026-09-15. Exchanges can amend contract specs — always confirm against the exchange or your broker before trading.