What is the correct trading hours selection for ES and MES RTH?

[bsmith]

I'm sorry to ask such a simple question, but ES and MES RTH evidently close at 4 PM ET, and the logical choice (to me) from the dropdown menu seems to be CME US Index Futures RTH. But that doesn't end at 4 PM ET, so obviously I'm wrong. I just found this out today, because I'm trying the mobile app, was short in MES, and it sent me a notification that it was closing at 4 PM.

What is the correct RTH trading hours selection for these instruments?

[NinjaTrader_BrandonH]

Hello bsmith,

Thanks for your post.

By default, the ES and MES instruments use the 'CME US Index Futures ETH' trading hours template. This could be found on the Tools > Instruments window.

The RTH trading hours template for these instruments would be 'CMS US Index Futures RTH'.

The 'CME US Index Futures RTH' trading hours template has an end time of 4:00 PM Central Time. This information could be seen by looking at the 'CME US Indes Futures RTH' trading hours template on the Tools > Trading Hours window.

The template uses the close time that the CME uses. Please see the link below.
https://www.cmegroup.com/trading-hours.html#equityIndex

[bsmith]

Thank you Brandon for the reply, and for pointing out the resources under "Tools".

I have been trading ES and MES for a couple of years, and was pretty surprised to get a notice from the mobile app that the market was closing at 4 pm yesterday. As I looked into it, it got more confusing. So I'll explain (what I now understand) for anyone else who might be trying to understand this. And if anyone else has any wisdom to add, please do so.

The NT mobile app sent me a notice that the market was closing at 4 PM, but I later realized that they meant "Central Time". But it isn't quite that simple.

I've always traded as if RTH closes at 4:15 ET. Yesterday I began to think that I've been completely wrong, because CME says that it closes at 5 ET. However, there is a daily "trading halt" from 4:15 to 4:30, according to Profile of the S&P 500 (ES) Futures Market (thebalancemoney.com). So it "kind of" ends at 4:15 ET, but not really. I'm probably going to stick to pretending that it ends at 4:15, and using "CBOE US Index futures RTH" for my trading hours, because it gives me a 9:30 ET open, and a 4:15 ET close.