Serial month

In futures markets the term serial month, or serial contract month, refers to the current month and the next months.[1] It is typically used for futures contracts which historically followed the quarterly (March) cycle (March - June - September - December), the quarterly months, but now also list the months "in between".

The term serial month is not used for monthly futures, i.e. futures with delivery dates in every month (e.g. Crude oil). Instead contract specifications will refer to those terms as calendar months or simply months.[2]