What do single quotation marks in the price of futures mean?

Question

What are those single quotation marks in the price, and how to read them?

Answer 1

Cash bonds and futures based on U.S. Treasury securities do not trade in decimal format but in full percentage points, plus fractions of a 1/32 of par value.

(Source: Calculating U.S. Treasury Pricing)

The part after the apostrophe (single quote) is the fractional part of the price.

Let's take the bid price of 10-Year U.S. Treasury Notes Futures (ZN) as an example: 132'205. In decimal: 132 + (20.5 / 32) = 132.640625.

An example used to be provided on ZN's contract specifications page (archived webpage from June 2018):

For example, 126-16 represents 126 16/32 and 126-165 represents 126 16.5/32.

According to ZN's contract specifications, the minimum price fluctuation of ZN is 1/2 of 1/32 of one point. The smallest increment would result in a decimal price of 132 + ((20.5 + 0.5) / 32) = 132.65625, and the smallest decrement would result in a decimal price of 132 + ((20.5 - 0.5) / 32) = 132.625.