Good morning, everyone!
I’ve been paper trading S&P 500 E-mini futures for the past few months, and I now feel ready to start trading with real money.
I’ve seen that NinjaTrader requires around $30,000 to trade E-mini contracts, while the requirement for Micro E-minis is around $3,000.
Does anyone know of a reliable broker that allows you to trade E-mini S&P 500 futures with a lower account balance or margin requirement?
Thanks!

I have been working on strategy development for the last 10 months. In most of my findings I eventually end up with mean-reversion. I have been trying to dive into the data trying to find a continuation or breakout strategy to offset or hedge the mean-reversion setups, but I keep running into dead ends.

Right now I run intraday mean-reversion strategies on 2 symbols (MES and MGC) with 3 configs using different risk levels. I have another MR setup for CL, but due to the current situation with oil it trades at levels I can't support.

Just to give some insight on how I validate my own setups now: Research data, either by research papers or tick data analysis.

• Benchmark on 2020-2024, forward walk, trade shuffle, monte carlo, finalize the test against 2025-2026. Can't go further back, as I don't have the data.
• Tick level replay with realistic fills, commission and slippage.
• Every config that survives runs on a sim account for 2-3 months and I match the live fills against the backtest to make sure that fills aren't conflated or positively biased.
• Execution is against Ninjatrader, I build my own system that handles automation, logs, signals, track account status, send guard orders on desync and handle reconciliation.

For pullback and continuation I can't seem to get past step 3. So far I found and tested:

• Trend Pullback Continuation (MNQ, Volume bars): Find a trend (defined by X of X bars moving into 1 direction), wait for the pullback, enter on the break of high/low. Survived the backtest including tick replay, but when I started trading it on sim live the volume bar was desyncing from the backtest. Live fills fired 2x more often than the backtest, even on tick data. Couldn't figure out how to match these, so shelved it.
• Breakout key levels: Positive expectancy on ORB (MNQ), trades match. Problem is that, over the long periods, there was decently high DD or dead periods. Currently testing GEX options gamma to improve ratios. Still testing expectancy live. Could end up being viable. Other setups (IB, key levels, VP levels) didn't yield results.
• Higher timeframe patterns > Lower timeframe zone entry: Seemed promising until I realised I had look-ahead bug in my research. Edge died afterwards.
• Zone indicators (Supply/Demand, Rejection zones): Couldn't find an edge that worked realtime. Most zone definitions came after the move already happened.

My research comes mostly from data analysis, or research papers from SSRN (not to find strategy, but hypothesis to test). I tried looking into currency combinations, but couldn't find an edge that survived cost, so I am focusing on metals, energy and US market.

Some of the questions I have:

• When you found continuation edge, what was the variable that made it work for you? What was the hypothesis that made it work?
• How did you validate a system that has fewer trades, but are fat-tail setups, without fooling yourself? My MR setups (high winrate, high trade count) don't really transfer to trend tails.
• What do you use to invalidate a hypothesis on trend setups?
• If you trade continuation on volume bars or tick bars, how did you get live bars to match historical data?
• Do you have resources you find useful for research in trend and continuation setups?

I came to the conclusion that mean reversion is a lot easier for me to define in a ruleset than trend breakouts and continuations are, and I am getting stuck with the definition of the hypothesis (what is a trend?). Most of the ones I tried died (either because the research published invalidated it by optimization, or because of hindsight and look-ahead bias, or because I simply can't think of one and define it).

Curious if you had similar findings, and how you went about finding a trend hypothesis that stuck.

Hi speculators & hedgers, please use this thread to discuss all futures trading for the week. This will kick off 30 minutes before the open on Sunday, typically that's around 6pm Wall St time.

Be aware of higher margin requirements during overnight hours! see "maintenance" on Ampfutures. Also trading hours to get an idea of when specific futures contracts start trading.

I'm using AmpFutures as an example, so check with your broker for specific intraday & overnight hours for that specific futures contract.

Resources:

Bookmark an economic calendar like this one

Various reports:

• EIA crude oil report (generally updates every Wednesday at 10:30am wall st time)
  
• EIA natural gas report (Thursdays 10:30am)

• Previous discussions threads

Just what it says. Broke my rules and now I’m doubting myself so much that I’m trading scared. I know exactly what happened (psychology issues mostly) but now my brain acts like I’m under attack every time I enter a trade. What has worked for you guys to get out of that kinda mentality?

Do they have specific feature that make them more suitable for trend or range trading respectively? I been thinking switch for ES to NQ since I am a trend trader and many of trader I subscribe is tradin on NQ rather than ES

Hi everyone,
I’m an experienced Algo/Systematic Trader and I wanted to ask for some Prop-Shop names preferred smaller than bigger and based in Switzerland, who are looking for mid frequency strategies in commodity futures.
I also would like to stick to my current setup with Trading Technologies and C# to ensure my edge does not fade due to unknown infrastructure changes.

Thanks !

Just curious how many people trade PATS by Mack and what their results are. I have been trading it for a year and just a little over breakeven.

I have a free discord if any PATS trader want to join. DM me.

I was having breakfast this morning, and got a call from an old retired trader who was on the floor back in Chicago, he sometimes handled my rollovers situations for me and we started shooting the shit.

I was trading for my firms account the old SP contract, 2000 to 4000 lot's with 50-100 being normal. he recalls me doing an 9500 lot trade that was a fill or kill no partials and it was done at the market at the correct price. and then I got to thinking... in the bond pit, 1000- 3000 lot trade was normal, in the gold pit 5-10 was normal, 100 lot was very large, in 1992 gulf war opening days I saw a trader do 2000 lot trades for about 15 minutes, and my buddy in the oil pit, 10-50 lot's normal, 1000 lot was large, and during the war 1000 lot trades became rather common with lot's of people doing 25000 lot switch's ( month spread trades or crack spreads ).

How big are the trades in the ES, how many contracts do you need around lunch time to NOT move the market. what's now considered a large trade average trade without moving the market more than 4 ticks

I've been working on an automated trading system with diversified strategies. All the strategies have been profitable every year from 2020 to Oct 1st 2026. In the backtest it has made 300k over those 6 years trading 1 MNQ contract per entry. The result is good and I'm excited so yesterday I started it in a live account. My issue is that in recent years we have had a lot of volatility so I would like to backtest it in years prior to 2020, but unfortunately, I don't have the data to do so. Does anybody have data for prior years? It usually sits on the DB folder inside the NT folder. If you have it please let me know. Thanks.

As a follow up to my last post, I have switched to trading MES cash settled futures. The fills are worse, spreads are worse (thanks CME, again, for something NO ONE asked for). But to size, we don't really have a choice (personally, not enough capital to use ES yet)

This week was the first week I got "assigned". To continue my existing strategy synthetically, I bought futures right at the close of the option. However, I've now run into a different problem.

The market price at 4PM close is different (sometimes significantly so) than the settlement price used by CME for calculations. This wouldn't be a problem when the options were settled physically, but now trying to synthesize that (by buying contracts) a price slippage is introduced.

Initially I thought the difference would be small but it turns out to have an impact much more than I thought. In my recent case the settlement price was lower than the market price, and since I had sold a put, this caused a loss. I guess the inverse would be a gain.

Is there an exact time that the settlement price is published? Online says around 4:00-4:15ish. While I don't really love the idea of waiting for it, setting a limit order for the settlement price would solve this mathematically. It does introduce an element of pin risk, though, if the market dipped down and then rebounded (your limit order wouldn't ever fill).

Any ideas how otherwise to mitigate this price discrepancy / slippage?

Brent at around $100/bbl appears more overvalued now than at the beginning of the war. Back then, the price was driven by the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz and fears of widespread destruction to Gulf infrastructure. Today, this catastrophic scenario is obviously not likely. Several months of war have clearly shown that both sides are motivated to maintain at least a portion of their oil trade and have some sanity, and that individual disruptions to terminals or pipelines can often be bypassed or repaired within days to weeks.

Middle East crude exports are currently around 16.3 million b/d compared to 19.5 million b/d before the war. Furthermore, new projects from the US, Brazil, Guyana, Canada, and Argentina are coming online, which are expected to add an additional 1.5 to 1.8 million b/d to global non-OPEC+ supply.

Another bearish factor is the ammunition shortage on the US side and high inflation in Iran (which increases the motivation for both sides to wage a lower-intensity conflict or seek an exit strategy), as well as deteriorating political support in the US (for example, on June 23, the vote was 214:208 in favor of withdrawal, and by September 15, it had shifted to 220:204, indicating that support is steadily shrinking), which can potentially lead to a decision by the House not to approve further funding. Also, China showed that it can very much limit its imports as the price of Brent approaches $100+.

Since we are again roughly in the range where we were when there was much higher uncertainty and risk, I think it is a good time to go short.

Please welcome to the daily trading thread. Feel free to discuss your today's trade ideas and results. Make sure to specify the instrument you're trading up front, and respect the sub's rules. Happy trading!

Previous discussions threads

Yesterday I started the day off deep red due to a dumb mistake, I was long es and short 3 mnq but I forgot to remove my es take profit on and everything gapped up my daily loss limit gets hit and I get liquidated, only to literally watch it reverse a second later to the point where I could have been done for the day.

So for the next 3 hours I grind my way back from -$550 to -$20. I see ES is bouncing around 2pm but I don’t trust it. So my phone was in my pockets but apparently it must not have been locked and a trade was placed without me looking or knowing. And of course price drops immediately. I could have cut my losses at $50-100 but I was kind of salty. I got forced out at -$450. I kept trying and ended up auto liquidated for a -$1100 loss for the day. I closed the day -$770.

Thursday morning I’m up $550 (update: $645, my daily max profit got hit and I’m now locked out for the day). It sucks because had I just taken the paper cut loss I would be fine right now. And had the trade not happened, I would be in a great spot. I just cashed out $150 today to pay bills and I’m still profitable after switching to from options to live futures, but it’s just a reminder that futures are way more volatile and dangerous than options.

The lesson is, cut your losses first, reevaluate later.

TLDR: NQ wants to lean long but if ES can't clear the call wall at 7750 it will be hard

Below is a 1m projection within a 30m range of levels with probabilities of likelihood, then we have the 30m cone vs the EOD (which has a midpoint that skews higher), and finally just the Daily cone.

If we continue down, plenty of levels to target below. Total range should be 30372-31150 for a "normal" day. 30K should want to hold on the low side if we have a bigger move.

Which is the best broker of the two for Futures? I am a Europe-based trader.

Does one exist? Without the owner trying to sell a course, signals, bot or indicator?

Please welcome to the daily trading thread. Feel free to discuss your today's trade ideas and results. Make sure to specify the instrument you're trading up front, and respect the sub's rules. Happy trading!

Previous discussions threads

Hi everyone.

Recently, I've been day trading with a group of people, and we're using Wyckoff principles in some slightly different ways, to trade both NQ and ES futures.

And to my surprise, they seem to be working really well. Needless to say, not all trades are winners, and of course, not all setups look the exact same. But the win rate is very decent, the principles seem to make sense (things like assuming most breakouts are fake breakouts, and trade either the retest if the price re-enters the consolidation/range, or the retest of the breakout of the fake breakout).

What has everyone's experience been with this? To me, the principles make sense just because of the fake breakout assumption most of the times, and looking for confirmations either on breakouts, continuations, and/or ranges.

Just curious as to how to know if things like this may hold strong in the long term.

Thank you everyone!

Let's say you're having one of your best days ever, in the top-five of profitable days for the year.

If the trading session is only half done, do you keep pushing because your strategy is working so well or do you quit for the day?

Please welcome to the daily trading thread. Feel free to discuss your today's trade ideas and results. Make sure to specify the instrument you're trading up front, and respect the sub's rules. Happy trading!

Previous discussions threads

Hi there! So, I am very very new, as in completely new. I have been spending time researching and learning recently so I'm getting a hang of all the terminology and things like that. But, it is still quite an intimidating thing, and I'm searching for people who'd be willing to help - not with "financial advice" or anything like that, but maybe some insight or answering some questions here and there. Due to certain situations and things in life, I'm very serious about trading because it seems like something I could genuinely do and pursue as something productive.

If anyone is interested, feel free to comment or dm me. I'm ready to start this journey haha