Appearance
Metals Futures
Our four metals targets are all COMEX-listed, cash-settled satellites of the two physically-delivered benchmarks GC (100-oz Gold) and SI (5,000-oz Silver): QO (50-oz E-mini Gold) and QI (2,500-oz E-mini Silver) are decades-old e-minis, while 1OZ (1-oz Gold, launched January 13, 2025 — press release) and SIC (100-oz Silver, launched February 9, 2026 — press release) are the new retail-sized generation. All four settle to the parent's daily settlement price and expire on the third-last business day of the month BEFORE the contract month (calendar-verified for all four; quoted rule text in the 1OZ FAQ and SIC FAQ) — i.e., roughly when the parent's delivery-month roll happens, about a month before the parent contract of the same name stops trading. Roll logic copied from GC/SI will be a month late.
LIQUIDITY WARNING — DO NOT TRADE QI, QO ONLY IN SMALL SIZE
QI (E-mini Silver) traded 336 contracts with OI 1,061 on 2026-07-10 — that is effectively no market: expect wide, often absent quotes and severe slippage; SIC traded 32× more (10,715) the same day. QO (E-mini Gold) traded 3,958 vs 1OZ's 33,207 — tradable in small size at the margin, but with a materially thinner book. Within the Wealthsimple-tradable universe, the practical metals instruments are 1OZ for gold and SIC for silver; QO is usable only where its 50-oz size is genuinely needed (≈ fifty 1OZ contracts, saving ~49× on per-contract commissions at the cost of worse fills), and QI should not be traded at all. For context: the liquid micro siblings MGC (Micro Gold, 221,427 traded — 56× QO) and SIL (Micro Silver, 31,165 — 93× QI) dominate these legacy e-minis, but neither MGC nor SIL is offered on Wealthsimple, so they are data/benchmark references here, not alternatives. QO and QI stay in this doc for completeness and because historical vendor data still carries their symbols. Figures: 2026-07-10 preliminary volume/OI, ProductSlate JSON. Both contracts remain listed and active as of 2026-07-11 (12 contract months each on the calendar API; live margin rates in CME Clearing's file).
Hours (all four + GC/SI): Globex Sunday 6:00 p.m. – Friday 5:00 p.m. ET, maintenance break 5:00–6:00 p.m. ET, no afternoon halt (tastytrade hours).
Margins below: CME Clearing maintenance rates from the CmeWS COMEX margins JSON retrieved 2026-07-11 (front-listed bucket), cross-checked against TradeStation same day.
1OZ — 1-Ounce Gold
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Full name / exchange | 1-Ounce Gold Futures, COMEX (spec page) |
| Contract size | 1 troy ounce (launch press release) |
| Quote / tick | USD/troy oz; $0.25 = $0.25/contract (1OZ FAQ) — note: at a $0.25 tick on 1 oz, the minimum spread is ~1bp of notional at $3,300 gold; tick cost is negligible but so is contract size |
| Hours (ET) | Sun 6:00 p.m.–Fri 5:00 p.m.; maintenance 5:00–6:00 p.m. |
| Listed months | Feb/Apr/Jun/Aug/Oct/Dec (GC's active cycle) within a 24-month window; 12 listed per calendar API (2026-07-11) |
| Settlement | Cash — "financially-settled based on the daily settlement price of the global benchmark Gold futures contract" (press release); FAQ: "cash settled to the 100 troy ounce Gold futures contract" |
| Last trading / expiry | "Third last business day of the month prior to the contract month" (FAQ); calendar-verified (Aug-26 last-trades 29 Jul 2026, same day as QO) |
| First notice | None |
| Margin | CME maintenance $206 (08/2026 bucket, CmeWS 2026-07-11); TradeStation $229 initial / $208 maint. (2026-07-11) |
| Volume / OI | 33,207 / 26,194 (2026-07-10 prelim) — healthy for an 18-month-old retail contract; launched 2025-01-13, so only ~1.5 years of history exists |
| Micro/full relationship | 1/100 of GC; sibling MGC (10 oz, 1/10 GC) traded 221,427 same day — the liquidity king of small gold, but not offered on Wealthsimple, making 1OZ the project's primary gold instrument |
QO — E-mini Gold
THIN MARKET — TRADE QO ONLY WHEN ITS 50-OZ SIZE IS NEEDED
QO traded 3,958 contracts / OI 8,433 on 2026-07-10 vs 1OZ's 33,207 (and MGC's 221,427 — 56× QO — though MGC is not offered on Wealthsimple). Within the Wealthsimple universe QO is the only gold contract larger than 1 oz, so its niche is expressing size without paying 50 separate per-contract commissions — accept the wider, thinner book as the price of that, use limit orders, and prefer 1OZ for everything else.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Full name / exchange | E-mini Gold Futures, COMEX (spec page) |
| Contract size | 50 troy ounces (1/2 of GC) (CME QO overview) |
| Quote / tick | USD/troy oz; $0.25 = $12.50 |
| Hours (ET) | Same as 1OZ |
| Listed months | Feb/Apr/Jun/Aug/Oct/Dec cycle; 12 listed per calendar API (2026-07-11) |
| Settlement | Cash; "settlements … derived directly from the settlements of the full-sized Gold futures (GC), rounded to the nearest tradable tick" (CME wiki, Gold) |
| Last trading / expiry | Third-last business day of the month prior to the contract month (calendar-verified: Aug-26 → 29 Jul 2026, identical to 1OZ) |
| First notice | None |
| Margin | CME maintenance $10,285 (08/2026, CmeWS 2026-07-11); TradeStation $11,477 initial / $10,434 maint. (2026-07-11) |
| Volume / OI | 3,958 / 8,433 (2026-07-10 prelim) |
| Micro/full relationship | 1/2 of GC; functionally displaced by MGC (not on Wealthsimple) and 1OZ — on Wealthsimple its only role is size: 1 QO ≈ 50× 1OZ |
QI — E-mini Silver
EFFECTIVELY NO MARKET — DO NOT TRADE QI
QI traded 336 contracts / OI 1,061 on 2026-07-10. Expect wide, often absent quotes and severe slippage. SIC traded 32× more the same day (and SIL, not offered on Wealthsimple, 93× more). SIC is the project's silver instrument; QI is documented here only for completeness and historical-data symbol coverage.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Full name / exchange | E-mini Silver Futures (a.k.a. "miNY Silver" in CME Clearing's margin file: "COMEX MINY SILVER FUTURES"), COMEX (spec page; COMEX Rulebook Ch. 912) |
| Contract size | 2,500 troy ounces (1/2 of SI) (CME QI overview) |
| Quote / tick | USD/troy oz; $0.0125 = $31.25 |
| Hours (ET) | Same as 1OZ |
| Listed months | SI-style cycle (Jan/Mar/May/Jul/Sep/Dec; currently Sep 2026–Jul 2028); 12 listed per calendar API (verified as of 2026-07-11) |
| Settlement | Cash; settlements derived from full-size SI settlements (CME wiki, Silver) |
| Last trading / expiry | Third-last business day of month prior to contract month (calendar-verified: Sep-26 → 27 Aug 2026, same day as SIC) |
| First notice | None |
| Margin | CME maintenance $15,042 (09/2026, CmeWS 2026-07-11); TradeStation $16,730 initial / $15,209 maint. (2026-07-11) |
| Volume / OI | 336 / 1,061 (2026-07-10 prelim) |
| Micro/full relationship | 1/2 of SI; displaced by SIL (1,000 oz micro, not on Wealthsimple) and now SIC |
SIC — 100-Ounce Silver
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Full name / exchange | 100-Ounce Silver Futures, COMEX (spec page) |
| Contract size | 100 troy ounces (1/50 of SI) (launch press release) |
| Quote / tick | USD/troy oz; minimum trading fluctuation $0.01/oz = $1.00/contract per the SIC FAQ (the fact card was re-verified 2026-07-11 and shows MIN TICK $0.01 / VALUE PER TICK $1.00 — a previously reported $0.005 discrepancy does not exist; both sources also give a $0.01 minimum settlement fluctuation) |
| Hours (ET) | Same as 1OZ |
| Listed months | Mar/May/Jul/Sep/Dec within a 24-month window (FAQ); 10 listed per calendar API (2026-07-11) |
| Settlement | Cash — "cash-settled to the 5,000 troy ounce Silver futures contract" (FAQ); daily settlements "derived directly from the settlements of the full-sized Silver futures (SI), rounded to the nearest SIC tradable tick" — SI settles off the Globex 12:24:00–12:25:00 CT window for the active month (CME wiki, Silver; note the FAQ itself does not state a settlement window) |
| Last trading / expiry | "Third-to-last business day of the month before the contract month" (FAQ); calendar-verified (Sep-26 → 27 Aug 2026) |
| First notice | None |
| Margin | CME maintenance $602 (09/2026, CmeWS 2026-07-11); TradeStation $670 initial / $609 maint. (2026-07-11) |
| Volume / OI | 10,715 / 11,711 (2026-07-10 prelim) — five months after launch, already 32× QI's volume |
| Micro/full relationship | 1/50 of SI; block-eligible min 25 contracts, FIFO 100% matching (FAQ). Launched 2026-02-09 — only ~5 months of price history exists anywhere; backtest on SI |