Futures Notional Value Calculator
Convert contracts into the notional value they actually control, with effective leverage against the margin posted.
One futures contract is a claim on a defined quantity of something. Multiply its quoted price by the cash value of a one-point move and the result is the notional value: the full size of the underlying position, the figure profit and loss is actually computed on, and a number that bears no fixed relationship whatsoever to the money posted to open it. A futures notional value calculator exists to keep those two figures apart.
Formula: notional = price x contract multiplier x contracts
Your figures
The contract's price now, in the units it is quoted in.
Cash value of a one-point move in the quoted price, from your contract specification.
As your broker publishes it. Set by the exchange from recent volatility, and frequently raised above the exchange minimum by the broker — so nothing is preset here.
Optional — sizes both the exposure and the margin against the account.
Results
Enter the price, the point value and the margin your broker requires.
The link reopens this calculator with the same numbers. Nothing you enter is sent to a server.
Continue with these figures
About the Futures Notional Value calculation
Working as a contract value calculator, it converts a contract count into that notional figure, divides it by the margin posted to give effective leverage, and — where a balance is supplied — sizes both against the account. Price, point value, margin per contract and balance are all entered by you. No contract specification is built in, because a multiplier belongs to one exchange's definition of one product, those definitions get revised, and a reader trading something no list covers would otherwise be left with nothing.
The last three rows are the ones worth reading twice. Margin per contract divided by point value gives the distance, in the points the contract genuinely trades in, at which the money committed to it has gone. That distance is the same whether one contract is held or fifty, and it is printed as a price for a long and as a price for a short so it can be held against wherever a stop is meant to sit.
Futures Notional Value formula
notional per contract = price × point value
notional value = notional per contract × contracts
margin posted = initial margin per contract × contracts
effective leverage = notional value ÷ margin posted
margin as % notional = margin posted ÷ notional value × 100
notional as % account = notional value ÷ account balance × 100
margin as % account = margin posted ÷ account balance × 100
points to margin out = initial margin per contract ÷ point value
that price, held long = price − points to margin out
that price, held short = price + points to margin out- point value
- The cash value of a one-point move in the quoted price, taken from your contract specification. Sometimes called the multiplier, and equal to the tick value divided by the tick size.
- notional value
- The full value of the underlying the contracts control. What gains and losses are measured against, and not the amount committed or the amount at risk.
- initial margin per contract
- The collateral your broker requires to open one contract, as published in their schedule. Frequently above the exchange minimum, and revised as volatility changes.
- effective leverage
- Notional value divided by margin posted. Identical at every contract count, because both sides scale together.
- points to margin out
- The adverse move that consumes the margin posted against a contract. A distance in the contract's own points, independent of position size.
Notional value is exposure, not the amount at risk, and conflating the two is the most expensive habit in futures trading. It is the whole value of the asset the contract controls: three crude contracts of a thousand barrels each with oil at $72 control $216,000 of crude, and that is the number every price move is applied to. It is not what can be lost, which depends on where the position is closed and how the market travels in between. It is not what has been committed, which is the margin. Sizing a book by margin instead of by notional is how an account finishes the week carrying an exposure nobody in it ever decided to take.
Margin is a performance bond rather than a deposit, a loan or a percentage of value. The exchange sets it from the contract's recent volatility — a good-faith sum sufficient to cover a plausible one-day move — and revises it, sometimes sharply and sometimes during a session, when volatility changes. Nothing ties it to the contract's value. That is exactly why margin is a field on this page rather than a rate applied to notional: there is no fixed relationship between the two, the leverage that comes out is a consequence of two independent figures, and the requirement that applies to any particular account is whatever that account's broker demands.
Effective leverage is unchanged by the number of contracts, which surprises people the first time they see it. Multiplying notional and margin by the same contract count cancels, so the ratio is a property of the contract and the margin rate rather than of position size. What the contract count changes is the exposure against the account, which is why the two account-relative rows exist: leverage tells you what one unit of collateral controls, and notional against the balance tells you how much of the account's future is riding on it.
The move that consumes the margin follows from the point value alone, for the same cancellation reason, so it is the same distance for one contract or for fifty. It is not a stop-out price and should not be read as one. A call arrives when equity drops below the maintenance requirement, which sits below the initial margin, and every pound of balance above the margin posted absorbs losses before that point is reached. What it is, is the honest scale of the position — the distance in the units the contract actually trades in at which the money put up against it is gone — and seeing that distance next to a chart is usually more informative than seeing the margin figure on its own.
Futures Notional Value: a worked example
Three crude oil contracts of 1,000 barrels each with the front month at $72.00, so a one-dollar move is worth $1,000 a contract, against $6,000 of initial margin per contract in a $60,000 account. The page opens on an index contract instead, and with the margin field blank — no margin figure is preset for any broker — so type these six figures in to follow the arithmetic below.
- Notional per contract72.00 × 1,000 = $72,000
- Notional value72,000 × 3 = $216,000
- Margin posted6,000 × 3 = $18,000
- Effective leverage216,000 ÷ 18,000 = 12.00 : 1
- Margin as a share of notional18,000 ÷ 216,000 × 100 = 8.333%
- Notional against the account216,000 ÷ 60,000 × 100 = 360.00%
- Move that consumes the margin6,000 ÷ 1,000 = $6.00, which is 8.333% of $72.00
- That price, held long72.00 − 6.00 = $66.00
Eighteen thousand dollars of collateral is carrying $216,000 of crude — twelve times the money posted and 3.6 times the entire account. A long position has lost the margin against it by $66.00, a distance oil has covered inside a fortnight on many occasions, and the account only survives that on the $42,000 sitting outside the margin. None of that is visible from the margin figure alone, which is the reason for calculating notional at all.
How to use the Futures Notional Value calculator
- Enter the contract's current price in the units it is actually quoted in — index points, dollars per barrel, cents per bushel — and put the matching cash value of one of those units in Point value.
- Take the point value from your contract specification rather than from memory, since a futures contract's size and the value of one point in it are what the whole calculation rests on. It is the tick value divided by the tick size, so a contract with a 0.25 tick worth $12.50 has a point value of $50.
- Use the initial margin your own broker publishes, not the exchange minimum. The field starts empty because a preset would be some other account's figure and stale besides: brokers routinely require more than the exchange floor, both revise it, and intraday day-trading margins are a different and much lower figure that does not apply to a position held past the close.
- Add the account balance to see the two account-relative rows, which are what turn this into a notional exposure calculator rather than a contract-size lookup. They answer a different question from leverage: leverage describes the contract, and these describe how much of this particular account is exposed to it.
- Read the effective leverage before the margin percentage. Twelve to one and 8.3% of notional are the same fact, but only one of them makes the size of the position obvious at a glance.
- Compare the move that consumes the margin with the distance to your intended stop. If the stop sits beyond it, the margin posted is not what limits the loss and the balance behind it is doing the work.
Limitations of the Futures Notional Value calculator
Every calculation makes assumptions. These are the ones that matter here.
- Notional value describes exposure and says nothing about the probability of anything. A large notional in a quiet instrument and a small one in a violent instrument are not comparable on this figure alone, which is what volatility-adjusted sizing exists to address.
- Margin requirements are not stable. Exchanges revise them from volatility and brokers add their own buffer, so the leverage shown is a snapshot of today's requirement rather than a permanent property of the contract.
- The move that consumes the margin is not a stop-out level. A margin call is triggered by equity falling below the maintenance requirement, which is lower than the initial margin, and any balance beyond the margin posted absorbs losses first.
- Notional is computed in the contract's own quoting units and then read as though it were the account's. A euro-denominated index future controls a notional in euros, so the leverage and the margin percentage below it are correct while the account-relative rows are not — those compare a euro exposure against a balance held in something else. Convert the price into your account's currency before entering it, or read the two account rows as approximations.
- Spread positions and multi-leg structures are margined far below the sum of their outright legs, and this arithmetic does not model that relief. Applying an outright margin figure to a spread will substantially overstate the collateral required.
- Commission, exchange and clearing fees, and any financing earned or paid on the cash balance are all excluded. They do not change the notional value but they do change what the position costs to hold.
Frequently asked questions about Futures Notional Value
Is notional value the amount I can lose?
No. Notional value is the size of the exposure — the figure every price move is applied to. What can be lost depends on where the position is closed and how far the market travels before that happens, which can be a fraction of the notional or, in a gapping market on a leveraged position, more than the account balance. The two numbers answer different questions and are routinely confused.
Why does effective leverage stay the same when I change the contract count?
Because both halves of the ratio scale with it. Doubling the contracts doubles the notional and doubles the margin posted, so the division cancels. Leverage is a property of the contract and the margin rate rather than of the size traded. What changes with the contract count is the exposure relative to the account, which is what the two account-relative rows report.
Why is futures margin not a fixed percentage of notional value?
Because it is not a price for the asset — it is a performance bond sized to cover a plausible one-day adverse move, set by the exchange from recent volatility. When volatility rises the requirement rises even though the contract has not changed, and when it falls the requirement is cut. The percentage of notional you see in the result is an output of two independent figures rather than a rate anyone set.
Where do I find the point value for my contract?
In the exchange's contract specification, and it is worth reading rather than assuming. It is the tick value divided by the tick size: a contract whose minimum tick of 0.25 is worth $12.50 has a point value of $50. Micro and mini versions of the same product have the same price and a fraction of the multiplier, which is the entire difference between them.
My broker shows a much smaller margin than the exchange. Which do I enter?
Enter what your account is actually charged for the position you intend to hold. Brokers usually require the exchange minimum or more overnight, and some offer a much lower intraday figure that applies only while the position is open within the session. A position sized against the intraday number and then held past the close is re-margined at the full rate, which is a common way to receive an unexpected call.
Does high effective leverage on a futures position mean it is too large?
It means the collateral posted is small relative to what it controls, which is a fact about the contract's margin rate as much as about your position. Whether the position is too large depends on the notional against the account, the instrument's volatility and where the exit sits — all of which this page reports or feeds into, and none of which the leverage ratio decides on its own.
Last reviewed . See our methodology and editorial policy.
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