DAX Futures Explained: FDAX, FDXM, FDXS

Yes, DAX futures trade on Eurex, and they list in three sizes: FDAX, FDXM and FDXS. All three settle in cash against the same German blue chip index, and all three move in ticks of one index point. The difference that matters is how many euros one index point is worth, since that multiplier sets both the tick value and the notional exposure a single contract carries.

Do DAX futures trade on Eurex?

They do. Eurex, the derivatives exchange of Deutsche Börse, lists the whole DAX futures family. The underlying is the DAX, the index of Germany's largest listed companies, calculated from Xetra cash market prices. Nothing about the contract is deliverable: no basket of German shares changes hands at expiry, and the position finishes as a cash payment. Every specification quoted below comes from Eurex's own product pages for DAX Futures, Mini-DAX Futures and Micro-DAX Futures, read in September 2026.

FDAX vs FDXM vs FDXS: multiplier, tick and notional

Each product carries a Eurex product ID, a contract value per index point and a minimum price change. As published:

• FDAX, the full size DAX future. EUR 25 per index point. Minimum price change 1.0 index point, worth EUR 25.
• FDXM, the Mini-DAX future. EUR 5 per index point. Minimum price change 1.0 index point, worth EUR 5.
• FDXS, the Micro-DAX future. EUR 1 per index point. Minimum price change 1.0 index point, worth EUR 1.

Notional is simply the multiplier times the index level. Take a hypothetical index level of 24,000, used here as round arithmetic rather than as a quote:

• FDAX: 24,000 × EUR 25 = EUR 600,000 of index exposure per contract.
• FDXM: 24,000 × EUR 5 = EUR 120,000 per contract.
• FDXS: 24,000 × EUR 1 = EUR 24,000 per contract.

The mini is one fifth of the full size contract and the micro is one twenty fifth of it. At any index level, five FDXM or twenty five FDXS carry the same exposure as one FDAX.

How much is one DAX futures tick worth?

One tick is one whole index point in all three products, which makes tick value and multiplier the same number: EUR 25, EUR 5 and EUR 1. A 10 point move in the index works out to EUR 250 on FDAX, EUR 50 on FDXM and EUR 10 on FDXS. That is the entire arithmetic of a futures position: ticks moved, times tick value, times contracts held. Our futures tick size and tick value guide runs the same calculation across products where the tick is a fraction of a point rather than a whole one.

How are DAX futures settled?

Settlement is in cash, payable on the first exchange day following the final settlement day. The final settlement day is the third Friday of the maturity month when that day is an exchange day, and the exchange day immediately preceding it otherwise. The final settlement price is the value of the index computed from Xetra auction prices of the index member shares, taken from the intraday auction that starts at 13:00 CET.

Two details are worth holding on to. The settlement value comes from an auction in the middle of the German session, not from the 17:30 CET close. And trading in the maturing contract stops at the start of that 13:00 CET auction, while the next quarterly month keeps trading through the rest of the day.

The quarterly cycle and the roll

DAX futures run on the March, June, September and December cycle. FDAX and FDXM list the next twelve quarterly months, reaching roughly three years out, while FDXS lists the three nearest quarterly months. Almost all activity sits in the front month until roll week, the stretch before final settlement when open interest migrates into the following quarter. A roll is two legs: close the expiring month, reopen the same exposure in the next one.

The third Friday of a quarterly month is a shared anchor across index derivatives markets rather than a Eurex quirk. The panel below counts what a listed Germany equity fund's tape did on each quarterly third Friday since 2023, measured against its own trailing twenty session average volume.

WITH daily AS
(
    SELECT
        date,
        max(toFloat64(volume)) AS vol
    FROM global_markets.stocks_daily_aggs
    WHERE ticker = 'EWG'
      AND date >= '2023-01-01'
      AND date <  '2026-09-19'
    GROUP BY date
),
with_avg AS
(
    SELECT
        date,
        vol,
        avg(vol) OVER (ORDER BY date ROWS BETWEEN 20 PRECEDING AND 1 PRECEDING) AS trailing_avg
    FROM daily
)
SELECT
    toString(date)                       AS expiry_date,
    round(vol / 1e6, 2)                  AS expiry_volume_millions,
    round(trailing_avg / 1e6, 2)         AS trailing_20d_volume_millions,
    round(vol / trailing_avg, 2)         AS expiry_ratio,
    formatDateTime(date, '%b %e, %Y')    AS expiry_label
FROM with_avg
WHERE toMonth(date) IN (3, 6, 9, 12)
  AND toDayOfWeek(date) = 5
  AND toDayOfMonth(date) BETWEEN 15 AND 21
ORDER BY date

The panel holds 14 quarterly third Fridays. On the most recent one, Sep 18, 2026, the fund recorded 1.84 million shares against a trailing twenty session average of 0.97 million, a multiple of 1.89. Read the ratio column straight down the series: it is the cleanest way to compare each quarterly Friday with the sessions immediately around it, without a price chart getting in the way.

How do you read a DAX futures symbol?

A contract code starts with the product root, then a month letter, then the year. The quarterly letters are H for March, M for June, U for September and Z for December. So FDAXZ6 and FDAXZ26 both name the December 2026 full size contract, with one or two year digits depending on the data vendor, while Eurex's own listings spell the maturity out in words. Swap the root and the same code names a different size: FDXMZ6, FDXSZ6. How to read a futures symbol breaks down root, month and year codes across exchanges, including the continuous contract labels charting packages use.

Why the future prints while the German cash market is closed

Eurex continuous trading in DAX futures runs from 02:10 to 22:00 CET, with a pre-trading phase ahead of it. The Xetra cash market's core continuous session runs from 09:00 to 17:30 CET, with an opening auction from 08:50 and the closing auction at 17:30. Deutsche Börse added an extended retail service from December 2025, quoting shares and exchange traded products between 08:00 and 08:55 and again from 17:30 to 22:00 CET. The index itself is computed across the core session. For a large part of the Eurex day, then, the future quotes against a benchmark that is not being updated from a full German cash session, which is why a futures chart and a cash index chart of the same day rarely start and stop at the same clock times. Our Xetra trading hours and holidays guide lists the cash side session by session.

You can watch the same clock gap on any Germany exposure that trades in New York. A US listed Germany equity fund is not a DAX future and it tracks a different index, but its tape is stamped in New York time and it keeps recording long after Frankfurt's core session ends. Grouped by the hour of the New York clock over a fixed quarter:

WITH bars AS
(
    SELECT
        formatDateTime(toStartOfHour(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')), '%H:00') AS et_hour,
        toFloat64(volume) AS vol
    FROM global_markets.delayed_stocks_minute_aggs
    WHERE ticker = 'EWG'
      AND window_start >= '2026-06-01 00:00:00'
      AND window_start <  '2026-09-01 00:00:00'
),
totals AS
(
    SELECT sum(vol) AS all_vol
    FROM bars
)
SELECT
    et_hour,
    round(sum(vol) / 1e6, 2)                 AS volume_millions,
    round(100 * sum(vol) / any(all_vol), 1)  AS share_of_volume_pct
FROM bars
CROSS JOIN totals
GROUP BY et_hour
HAVING 100 * sum(vol) / any(all_vol) >= 0.5
ORDER BY et_hour

Every hour bucket carrying at least half a percent of the quarter's recorded volume is on the panel: 8 of them, running from 09:00 to 16:00 New York time, the first of those at 14.3% of the total. Frankfurt's core close at 17:30 CET lands at 11:30 in New York for most of the year, so everything to the right of the 11:00 bucket happened with the German cash session already shut. Measured month by month, that split is remarkably stable.

WITH bars AS
(
    SELECT
        toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York') AS et_ts,
        toFloat64(volume)                            AS vol
    FROM global_markets.delayed_stocks_minute_aggs
    WHERE ticker = 'EWG'
      AND window_start >= '2025-09-01 00:00:00'
      AND window_start <  '2026-09-01 00:00:00'
)
SELECT
    formatDateTime(toStartOfMonth(et_ts), '%Y-%m')  AS month,
    round(sum(vol) / 1e6, 1)                        AS volume_millions,
    round(100 * sumIf(vol, (toHour(et_ts) * 60 + toMinute(et_ts)) >= 690) / sum(vol), 1) AS after_frankfurt_close_pct
FROM bars
GROUP BY month
ORDER BY month

Across 12 months, most of the fund's recorded volume lands after the German core close: 59.4% in 2025-09 and 51.5% in 2026-08. Eurex's own DAX order book stays open through that same window and for hours either side of it, which is the practical reason a German index position can be adjusted while Xetra is dark.

Who each DAX futures size is for

Granularity is the real difference between the three. One FDAX moves EUR 25 per index point, so a 100 point session is EUR 2,500 per contract before fees. One FDXS moves EUR 1 per point, making the same session EUR 100. An account sizing in small increments has twenty five steps between flat and one full size contract if it trades the micro, and five if it trades the mini. A desk hedging a German equity book in six figure blocks gets fewer tickets from the full size contract. Initial margin scales with notional and Eurex publishes the current requirement per product, so the micro is not a different risk profile at equal exposure, only a finer unit of it.

Options on the same index are quoted in the same index points and settle against the same auction. See DAX daily options for the expiry ladder, and Euro Stoxx 50 daily options for the neighbouring European benchmark.

FAQ

Do DAX futures trade on Eurex?

Yes. Eurex lists DAX futures in three sizes: FDAX, FDXM and FDXS. All are quoted in DAX index points and all settle in cash against the index.

What is a DAX futures tick worth?

One tick is one full index point, which is EUR 25 on FDAX, EUR 5 on FDXM and EUR 1 on FDXS, per Eurex's published contract specifications as of September 2026.

Are DAX futures physically delivered?

No. Settlement is in cash, payable on the first exchange day following the final settlement day. No German shares change hands at expiry.

When do DAX futures expire?

On the third Friday of March, June, September or December when that day is an exchange day, otherwise on the exchange day before it. Trading in the maturing contract ends at the start of the Xetra intraday auction at 13:00 CET, and that auction sets the final settlement price.

Which DAX futures contract is the smallest?

FDXS, the Micro-DAX future, at EUR 1 per index point. At a hypothetical index level of 24,000 that is EUR 24,000 of notional exposure, one twenty fifth of an FDAX.

Every panel above ships with the exact SQL beneath it. To re-run these clock and expiry counts, or point the same arithmetic at another listing, ask the question in plain English on the Strasmore terminal.