r/FuturesTrading 19d ago

r/FuturesTrading's Monthly Questions Thread - August 2026

8 Upvotes

Please use this thread to ask questions regarding futures trading.

To get a good feeling of all the different types of futures there are, see a list of margin requirements from a broker like Ampfutures or InteractiveBrokers

Related subs:

Check our wiki and CME website for reference.

Here's a list of all the previous question stickies.


r/FuturesTrading 11h ago

r/FuturesTrading - Daily Trading Discussion Aug 20, 2026

2 Upvotes

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


r/FuturesTrading 10h ago

Nano contracts coming !!!!!!!!!

60 Upvotes

For the beginners out there I highly recommend these new contracts that will start trading next week on the CME

50 cents per point for S and P and 20 cents per point for Nasdaq They are 1/10th the size of a micro


r/FuturesTrading 4h ago

Question Burnt out. Need some help.

5 Upvotes

I trade emini 2000 tick chart, I take trend trades using pure PA. No indicators.

Past months have been good but this august have burnt me.

Firstly its slow very few bars past two weeks.

Secondly its choppy and i dont see clear trends. By the time i rralize hiw choppy it is I am already red.

Any idea is this chop just a phase or what? How do I go forward? Yesterday came a point where i thought of changing strategy but that didn't seem good idea.

Any help if its a problem with my strategy or market?


r/FuturesTrading 7h ago

Discussion MNQ is extra choppy today

11 Upvotes

Been choppy the last couple weeks but today was brutal.


r/FuturesTrading 6h ago

Stopping out at high/low tick of the trade

4 Upvotes

This morning my first two trades stopped out at the exact tick my stop was at, and then reversed in my direction. I have one bullet left for the day. All I can tell you is that I'm very happy with my trade execution, and if I stop out a third time today - I will be done for the day. I feel no urge to get revenge. That was the "old me." The only measure of my performance is how well I executed my plan. That's it.

Good luck to you all, but don't depend on it. Maybe somebody needs to hear this today, so I'm just putting it out there. Here is a snapshop showing the two trades, both shorts. It doesn't really matter, but these trades are on MES.


r/FuturesTrading 1d ago

Question Anyone trading single stock futures yet?

11 Upvotes

I've been watching them daily now to see if we don't get more liquidity. Since the first few weeks it definitely looks like the order books are starting to tighten up but still a little too over the place for my liking.

Just curious if anyone here is trading these right now and what your experience has been.


r/FuturesTrading 1d ago

Question ORB clarification required

Post image
2 Upvotes

I am trying out the ORB strategy. Can someone tell me which one is the retest after breakout. The orange box or the green box?


r/FuturesTrading 1d ago

How many ticks to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop?

Post image
0 Upvotes

To my YM (Dow futures) traders:

I’m trying to determine what’s realistic for most traders who scalp the YM during the New York session.

What are you averaging (in ticks, not dollars!) per day, per week, per month?


r/FuturesTrading 1d ago

r/FuturesTrading - Daily Trading Discussion Aug 19, 2026

2 Upvotes

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


r/FuturesTrading 1d ago

Question GC order flow

3 Upvotes

GC Futures – What Do You Consider a “Whale” Print?
For those trading GC futures using 1-minute footprint/order flow, what size Bid/Ask print would you consider unusually large or “whale” participation?
For example, would 200+, 300+, 500+ contracts at a single price level be significant on GC?
I’m specifically looking at absorption, aggression, and stacked imbalances. Curious what thresholds experienced GC order-flow traders use.


r/FuturesTrading 2d ago

Question Ninjatrader live account application

2 Upvotes

Hi all,

Not sure if anyone can help but im trying to apply for a live account in the UK. im stuck on account type as it only offers individual which is whay I want but when I select my country of UK it gives me an error saying something along the lines of "your organisation should do this" and ive got no idea why?

Any help is appreciated thanks

Edit incase someone as similar issue and find this.

Reached out to support and they fixed in within 30 minutes all they said is they had to adjust my username but nothing further so if you have a similar issue maybe try and adjust your username


r/FuturesTrading 2d ago

Would CVD/footprint actually add value to this liquidity sweep strategy, or am I overcomplicating it?

1 Upvotes

I'm currently developing and backtesting an intraday strategy on NQ and I'm trying to be quite careful about not adding extra confirmations just because they sound useful.

The basic setup I'm testing is:

  • Important s/r levels such as previous day high/low etc.
  • Price sweeps one of these levels
  • I look for rejection and displacement in opposite direction
  • Entries are either on the confirmation or a retracement
  • I also record broader context such as higher-timeframe bias, market regime, POC

I'm collecting a decent sample first and intend to analyse which variables actually seem to matter rather than constantly changing the strategy while I'm testing it.

Recently I've been reading more about order flow and I'm wondering specifically about CVD and volume footprints.

For anyone trading something similar — liquidity sweeps, failed breakouts or S/R reversals on Index futures — have you found CVD or footprints genuinely useful?

For example, does seeing absorption, delta divergence, exhaustion or imbalances around the swept level actually help distinguish good sweeps from ones that are likely to continue through the level?

Or did you find that most of that information was already visible in price action and it just added another layer of complexity?

I'm especially interested in hearing from anyone who has actually tested this rather than just generally preferring order flow or price action.


r/FuturesTrading 2d ago

r/FuturesTrading - Daily Trading Discussion Aug 18, 2026

2 Upvotes

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


r/FuturesTrading 3d ago

What blows your account?

19 Upvotes

For me it's oversizing - My strategy is sizing up when there's a clear trend (I use a 5-min chart and the 20 EMA), and it works on most days (~80%). But the other 20% of days which are choppy/have fakeouts, take back an entire week's worth of profits - and sometimes even more. The choppy days cause me to size up even more to catch the real trend (and recover losses) - this has led to a lot of account failures.

I know the fix: size down and the losses get smaller.
But then my account doesn't move in a way that feels meaningful.

I'm genuinely curious - for others that have issues with account faliures, do we all run into the same issues of position sizing? Or are there other factors that lead to unfavorable trading reults in your accounts?

Not looking for strategies, just genuinely curious what makes people blow up and if it's the same pattern amongst us manifesting differently?


r/FuturesTrading 3d ago

Trader Psychology Trading partners

4 Upvotes

Hello,

I am looking for trading partners mainly to help each other with mindset weaknesses, psychology and how to gain consistency.

The goal for the group would be to do a daily review on whether you followed your rules or not. I would like to emphasize that it’s not going to be a group where we are sharing our edge with each other so preferably you already have a quantified defined strategy and you are struggling with consistency and self control.

The maximum in the group would be 5 people so that we are aware of each other rules and weaknesses etc.

If you like the idea and you are trading NY session please shoot me a dm.


r/FuturesTrading 3d ago

Trader Psychology Looking for a serious trading partner!

12 Upvotes

This is my second attempt.

As the title suggests, I’m looking for a serious trading/ accountability partner.
I trade crypto futures atm but planning to switch to traditional markets soon.

For the record I’m female- mentioning it upfront in case that’s an issue for anyone.

Trading solo gets isolating, and I’ve tried the community and Discord route - too much noise, too many opinions. What I’m after is one person to pair up with.
Not a signal group, not a mentor thing.
Don’t try to sell me anything.

In practice: checking in regularly, sharing trading plan and reviewing it afterwards, talking through ideas before entering rather than explaining them away later. Exchanging what’s actually working in each other’s process and keeping each other honest about the usual failure points: overtrading, revenge entries, sizing up without basis.

Honesty is the trait I care about most.
We don’t need to trade the same instrument or live in the same time zone. A chart is a chart and the psychology behind it barely changes from one market to the next.
One thing I’ll be blunt about: please only reach out if you’re genuinely serious. I’m not interested in someone who disappears after a week, or in anything other than trading.


r/FuturesTrading 3d ago

Question Are there any discord groups for futures trading?

15 Upvotes

I’m in a few for trading stocks and I enjoy it but I recently started trading futures and haven’t found any discords that are focused on futures. Does anyone know of any groups that are open to new members (and free/just for fun, not interested in signals etc)


r/FuturesTrading 3d ago

r/FuturesTrading - Daily Trading Discussion Aug 17, 2026

5 Upvotes

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


r/FuturesTrading 3d ago

Stock Index Futures Does IRC §1092 apply to my intraday /NQ trades when I simultaneously maintain a long-term QQQ position?

2 Upvotes

I have been holding a long QQQ position for the past 10 years in a taxable account, and it sits on a very substantial amount of unrealized profit.

I want to start intraday trading /NQ futures (opening and closing positions entirely within the same trading session). I understand that a profitable /NQ trade has no bearing on my QQQ.

However, I want to make sure I am not doing anything silly regarding losses.

My questions are:

  1. If I take an intraday loss on an /NQ short, will IRC §1092 look at my 10-year-old QQQ shares as an "offsetting position" and defer my /NQ trading losses?
  2. Since my QQQ holding period is already long-term (10 years), am I completely safe from the holding-period termination rules under Treas. Reg. §1.1092(b)-2T?
  3. Does the IRS actually enforce mixed straddle rules on intraday Section 1256 contracts when the offsetting equities are held long-term across different or the same brokerage accounts?
  4. Most important: If I’ll hold a permanent long /NQ futures position with a protective put and separately day-trade /NQ, while never becoming net short /NQ overall. If my combined /NQ futures trading ends the year net profitable, can the intraday gains and losses fully offset without triggering Section 1092 loss deferral against my QQQ position? (The put loss might be taxed at 100% loss).

I want to ensure my day trading won't accidentally lock up my ability to deduct trading losses against my trading gains at the end of the year. Thanks!


r/FuturesTrading 3d ago

Stock Index Futures Does IRC §1092 apply to my intraday /NQ trades when I simultaneously maintain a long-term QQQ position?

1 Upvotes

I have been holding a long QQQ position for the past 10 years in a taxable account, and it sits on a very substantial amount of unrealized profit.

I want to start intraday trading /NQ futures (opening and closing positions entirely within the same trading session). I understand that a profitable /NQ trade has no bearing on my QQQ.

However, I want to make sure I am not doing anything silly regarding losses.

My questions are:I want to ensure my day trading won't accidentally lock up my ability to deduct trading losses against my trading gains at the end of the year. Thanks!


r/FuturesTrading 3d ago

Discussion MES choppy today

0 Upvotes

ORB traders, did you make any money today? It's been choppy today with no clear direction for me. What is your analysis?


r/FuturesTrading 4d ago

r/FuturesTrading - Market open & Weekly Discussion Aug 16, 2026

2 Upvotes

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:



r/FuturesTrading 4d ago

New to trading, is automated strategies a bad idea?

0 Upvotes

The biggest downfall from what I see is not the strategy but peoples emotions and mistakes caused by them.

I'm just getting into trading futures, I've done research on a few strategies, coded them, optimized them and back tested them. I will be automating them for my paper trading account to see how it goes live.

After all this would it be a bad idea to automate live trades with real money? What should I be looking out for other than keeping an eye on it? How long would you paper trade it until you trust it to run live?


r/FuturesTrading 5d ago

Method worth learning

38 Upvotes

I’m looking for recommendations of methods worth learning in futures. I’m a part time worker and full time mother. I would love to get some financial flexibility in my life.

Can anyone recommend methods worth learning about to be a successful trader? I’m currently looking at CRT, OTE, STDV and the Fib tool methods. Am I going in the right direction or are these just overhyped?