Notional value

Notional value is the technical name for face value: a contract counted at its $1 payout, the way a bond is counted at par. It is deliberately distinct from cash spent (contracts × price), which runs smaller because most contracts trade below $1. On TickerTracker, volume and open interest are both reported in these face-value dollar terms, so a market's volume figure is its notional. Because every contract pays $1, the notional figure equals the raw contract count on almost every venue — but it is defined by the payout, not the count.

Related terms

Volume

Open interest