So the NQ futures are 616x leveraged, if I understood and calculated right. Which means a 1% loss will be 616x as well. With a $500 margin, a 0.16% move in the wrong direction would blow my position. How do you trade such an instrument ? Any specific risk management features for futures ?
Just because a broker allows 1 contract per $500 doesn't mean you should trade with that amount of leverage. You wanted a 1% move to give you a 30% profit so if you have ~$10,000 in the account for every contract of NQ then a 1% move will give you ~30% return. NQ moves 1% (154 pts.) x $20 (1 contract) = $3,080 profit. $3,080 / $10,000 = 30.8% return with a 1% move. You mentioned 2% risk management. That would be a $200 Stop Loss (10 pt. for NQ)with 1 contract per $10,000. ***MNQ (micro-futures) are 1/10 the size of NQ with the same chart so you could use that until you figure out the appropriate position size until you're comfortable.