Futures Expiration in September 2026: Three Dates the Market Is Bracing For

In brief: Expiration is the date on which a derivatives contract stops trading and final settlement takes place. In September 2026, three quarterly expirations coincide within the week of 14–18 September and at the end of the month: on 17 September, quarterly futures and options on the Moscow Exchange (MOEX) derivatives market expire (including contracts on the MOEX Russia Index and the RTS Index); on 18 September the US has its quadruple witching day; and on 25 September comes the quarter's largest bitcoin options expiration on Deribit. All of this overlaps with the US Federal Reserve (the Fed) rate decision on 16 September. The upshot: elevated volumes and choppy volatility for a week and a half.

17 September: quarterly expiration on the Moscow Exchange

On the Moscow Exchange derivatives market, quarterly index futures settle on the third Thursday of March, June, September and December. In September 2026 that is Thursday, 17 September.

What expires on that date:

• the MOEX Russia Index futures, series 9.26 (MXU6/MIX-9.26);
• the RTS Index futures, series 9.26 (RIU6/RTS-9.26), trading until 19:00 MSK on 17 September;
• quarterly options on those futures;
• quarterly series of a number of currency, commodity and single-stock contracts.

What this means in practice for a position holder: if you hold the September futures and want to keep your exposure, you need to roll the position — close the September series and open the December one (12.26). Rolling costs money: you pay the spread between the series plus commission, and the price difference between the series depends on the state of the market — contango (the far contract is more expensive) or backwardation (cheaper).

Important: liquidity in the September series starts "leaking" into the December series roughly a week before expiration. By the middle of the week of 14–18 September, most of the volume usually sits in the far contract, and trying to exit the near series in size on the last day gets you a worse price.

Separately, note that the Moscow Exchange trading schedule changed from 14 September: the main session now opens at 9:00 MSK. Details are in our piece "Moscow Exchange opens trading at 9:00".

18 September: quadruple witching in the US

Quadruple witching (in Russian market parlance, "the day of four witches", sometimes "triple witching") is the third Friday of the last month of a quarter, when four classes of contracts expire simultaneously: index futures, options on index futures, index options and single-stock options. In 2026 the September date is Friday, 18 September.

What this means for the market in practice:

• trading volumes on such days rise several-fold relative to the average; historically, quarterly expirations rank among the highest-volume sessions of the year;
• the surge in activity begins on the Wednesday of expiration week and peaks on Friday morning, during the special opening rotation;
• a large share of the volume is not directional bets but technical rolling and position closing, so the "signal" in that day's price action is weaker than usual.

For a Russian trader this matters indirectly: 18 September sets the mood on foreign markets, which feeds through to the MOEX Russia Index on Monday via oil and global risk appetite.

25 September: quarterly bitcoin options expiration

The crypto market runs on its own calendar: the main options expiration takes place on the last Friday of the month, and the quarterly one on the last Friday of the quarter. In September that is 25 September.

The scale of the event. According to market reviews, as of 30 August total open interest in bitcoin options had recovered to roughly $44 billion (it was around $25 billion in early August). Positioning as of that date:

Metric	Value
Calls in open interest	288,409.93 BTC (60.89%)
Puts in open interest	185,234.42 BTC (39.11%)
Puts' share of daily volume	54.49% versus 45.51% for calls
Share of 25 September in total BTC options OI	about 41.5%

The largest individual strikes on Deribit at the time of the review:

• 25 September call at the $70,000 strike — 11,018.2 BTC;
• 25 December call at $80,000 — 8,590 BTC;
• 25 September call at $85,000 — 8,373.9 BTC;
• 25 September call at $100,000 — 7,323.4 BTC;
• 25 September put at $70,000 — 7,227.3 BTC.

A telling detail: open interest is skewed toward calls, while daily turnover was dominated by puts. In other words, old bullish positions remain on the books while new trades go into protection. This is consistent with the picture of ETF outflows and long liquidations we covered in "Why bitcoin is falling today".

What max pain is and whether to rely on it

Max pain is the price of the underlying asset at expiration at which the largest number of options expire worthless, i.e. the total payout to contract holders is at its minimum. For the 25 September expiration, max pain estimates for BTC sit around $70,000–72,000, roughly 9% below the index level of about $79,117 at the time of calculation. On Binance, the max pain range for September dates was estimated at $73,000–80,000; on OKX, a similar $70,000–80,000.

What max pain does not mean:

• it is not a price forecast or a "target" the market is obliged to reach;
• the figure is recalculated every day as open interest changes; yesterday's number is already different today;
• academic evidence of a persistent "pull" of spot toward max pain in the crypto market is weak; on traditional markets a "pinning" effect toward large strikes is documented, but it is local and mostly visible in the final hours of trading.

What max pain does show is where the money is concentrated. The 9% gap between spot and max pain means a significant share of the 25 September calls risks expiring out of the money.

How expiration actually moves prices: the mechanics

Three mechanisms drive higher volatility on expiration days.

1. Rolling. Large holders move positions into the next series. This creates enormous volume unrelated to any view on market direction, but it weighs on spreads and on the gap between the near and far contracts.

2. Market-maker delta hedging. Options sellers maintain a delta-neutral position and continuously buy or sell the underlying. The closer to expiration, the higher the gamma — and the more sharply the market maker has to react to price moves. As spot approaches a large strike, hedging flows become one-sided and can push the price on their own.

3. Settlement and reset. After expiration, a huge block of open interest simply disappears. The market is left without the "anchors" of hedging flows, and the session following expiration often has a wider range than usual.

Do perpetual futures have an expiration

No — and that is the fundamental difference. Perpetual futures (including the Moscow Exchange's new perpetual contracts and the perpetual contracts on crypto exchanges) have no settlement date: instead, a funding mechanism applies — regular payments between longs and shorts that keep the contract price close to spot. Instead of a one-off expiration risk, you get a constant stream of funding costs or income.

This changes position management: with a quarterly futures contract you have to watch the calendar; with a perpetual, the cost of carry.

A practical checklist for 14–25 September

1. Check the series in your portfolio: September contracts (9.26) settle on 17 September.
2. Decide in advance whether to roll or close. Do not leave it to the last hour of trading.
3. Budget for wider spreads: on expiration days limit orders fill worse and market orders suffer more slippage.
4. Check your margin requirements: exchanges raise initial margin ahead of events with expected volatility, and the FOMC meeting on 16 September is exactly such an event.
5. Do not carry large leverage through 16 September (the Fed) and 17–18 September (expirations) without stop orders.
6. Remember that 25 September is the crypto expiration and falls in the following week; open interest in BTC options will rise noticeably into that date.

Risks

This article describes trading in futures and options — leveraged instruments. Losses on them are not limited to the margin posted: on a sharp opening gap the account can go negative, and the broker will demand additional funds. On expiration days and around macro data releases this risk is at its highest: liquidity drops, spreads widen, and stop orders are filled at worse prices. For the arithmetic of leverage and liquidation, see "Leverage and liquidation".

Sources

• Futures and options contract information — Moscow Exchange
• Futures and options contract code specifications — Moscow Exchange
• Quadruple Witching Dates for 2026 — TradeStation
• Options Bets Turn Defensive Ahead of a Bitcoin Price Showdown — Bitcoin.com News, 30 August 2026
• Bitcoin Price Analysis September 13, 2026 — usethebitcoin.com
• Large FX options expiration on Thursday — The Moscow Times, 10 September 2026