E-mini Dow (YM) delivery months at a glance — every contract's record over its tenure as the lead month.
Futures Seasonality · Contract-Month Study
Every YM contract measured over its quarter as the lead contract · Updated for 2026
The Dow’s four seats include the two most instructive files in our entire study: the December seat, whose October-dip-into-year-end-rally route repeats more faithfully than anything else we measured (+0.58), and the June seat, whose worst year in sixteen springs was a loss of 2.8%.
Most seasonality tables slice the calendar. This one slices the contracts. Each delivery month below is measured over its time as the lead contract: from the open of the day it takes over the front of the board to the close of the day it hands off the lead. No roll gaps, no splicing, one contract per observation. Index contracts run a quarterly rotation: Mar, Jun, Sep, and Dec, each holding the lead for roughly 63 trading days from roll to roll.
E-mini Dow (YM) — Average Change by Seat
Average change while each contract leads the board. Hover any bar for the detail.
Each row is one quarterly delivery month: how many of its seats rose while leading, the average change over the seat, and the average high-to-low range. “Typically leads” is the median window.
| Contract | Typically leads | Up / Down | Win rate | Avg change | Avg range |
|---|
Table view doubles as the accessible read of the chart above.
The December seat is the study’s most repeatable file. Fourteen of sixteen higher, 88%, with a route consistency of +0.58, the highest of the 95 files: mid-October low, rally to mid-December, carried to the roll in 10 of 16 years. The folklore, counted.
The June seat never cracked. Thirteen of sixteen higher with a worst-ever of −2.8%, the mildest floor in the study, the blue-chip spring at its steadiest, even entering 2020 at the March low.
Winter holds the one disaster. The March seat’s 2020 tenure, −25.7%, bracketing the COVID crash almost perfectly, is the deepest index tenure in our files, the exception that shadows an otherwise mild 62% seat.
A seat’s record tells you how its stretch of the year has treated the lead contract historically. It doesn’t tell you where the current one sits today, whether this cycle is tracking the record or fighting it, or the levels that matter into the next session. That is what The Traders Brief does every morning, across energy, metals, and the indexes.
See today’s read →Which Dow contract quarter is historically strongest?
The December (Z) seat: 14 of 16 higher, 88%, running the most repeatable route in our entire 95-card study (+0.58 consistency).
Which is weakest?
The March (H) winter seat at 62%, whose file holds the study’s deepest index tenure, 2020’s −25.7%.
When do YM contracts roll?
Quarterly, mid-March, June, September, and December, third-Friday expiration, roughly 63 trading days per seat.
Contract tendencies are drawn from 16 years of individual E-mini Dow futures contract history (2010–2026), each measured over its own seat as the lead contract, and describe the past. They are not a forecast and not trading advice. Markets can and do trade against their record in any given year. © 2026 The Traders Brief.