I'll go first. Out of the main ones, MES, MNQ, M2K, and MYM, I have pretty much only traded MNQ. Not much of a reason, I'm afraid. I was told that was the one to trade. I want to try to set aside some time for paper trading the Micros when we have some major projects completed and I am not quite so busy. Meanwhile I wanted to soak up some of the collective wisdom of the forum.
my favorite keeps on changing depending on which index futures is trendy (ie not choppy/messy). These are the index futures I trade. Most of these index futures have a rather big day range. Taiwan index MSCI Singapore China A50 Hangseng Hangseng Tech India Nifty Thailand SET dax fce omx ftmib fesx es nq ym russell 2000 ____________________ A few weeks ago, most European index futures were my favorite (Ukraine war thing). Last week, Hangseng Tech was my favorite (China tech stock listing in the US issue). Yesterday OMX & Hangseng were my favorite. Today, I have no favorite. US index futures were not on my favorite list for many days.
MES / ES. Simply because I spent a great deal of time studying, trading it and compiling various statistics on it. I've seen many claims that ES is the hardest of all index futures to trade. As such, I've spent some time looking at both NQ and YM, but I don't see that there's a great difference. Maybe I'm missing something? NQ exhibit more momentum and can move faster/longer, so maybe it's easier for scalping and breakout moves. It still seems to have a quite decent amount of back-filling and "chop", though. I'm interested in looking more into OMX which @maxinger brought to my attention, but didn't find data on my first attempt and have not found time to do so yet. If I lived in the US I would certainly have taken a very good look at Asian index futures as I think there's a lot of good products/action there.
Also, RTY is very nice to trade but occasionally the index just dies. So you have to be very cognizant of taht.
Care to elaborate? FWIW, I think this comment may have been more relevant in low volatility periods when the ES would barely move. Clearly not the case right now and have not been so for a long time. Since ES is what I know I obviously don't disagree with you.
ES is easiest = volume is good, decent liquidity = moves are more meaningful and predictable. NQ is retarded = volume sucks, low liquidity = lot of unnecessary moves
Agreed. While the profit potential is larger on NQ that doesn't matter if it's less predictable and you can't catch those moves reliably. It may be that others have come to different conclusions and results. My experience with NQ is limited, so I will not speak with authority. Just my casual observation having followed NQ for a long time, although not in great detail as I never really traded it.