Like many others I'm wondering how liquidity will be in the single stock futures launching soon.

It's my understanding that a good chunk of the liquidity in micro index future markets like MES and MNQ comes from incentivized liquidity providers that help traders find the liquidity they need and keep MES pinned tightly to ES. And the e-mini markets themselves are also full of similar inventory that helps provide liquidity to other traders. If the CME offers similar incentives and similar opportunities exist in these new markets, do you think liquidity providers will be interested once they tune their algos to the individual markets and see that there's at least a a small amount of volume to work with? It would be nice if the liquidity provider crowd put some depth into the mix to grease the skids a bit.

The reason I ask is that in some ways (not all obviously) these new futures seem to resemble the micro index contracts.

- They're relatively lightweight, if you look at the ATR of some of the tickers and see what kind of weight 100 shares represents, and compare that to the ATR and weight of a micro index future, many of them are similar in strength to a few micro contracts.

- In some cases like TSLA and NVDA and so on, they're also futures for instruments that have active options markets, like SPX/SPY/QQQ/etc.

- Since they're derivative products, in theory there needs to be some amount of liquidity present, like in MES or MNQ for example, to keep the future from wandering too far off from the underlying (right?).

- If I've read my history correctly, I believe many active traders were also sour on the idea of micros before they launched, saying there wouldn't be enough liquidity to be tradeable.

- And at least on paper these stock futures are being created for the same reason micros were created, to make the markets more accessible for smaller traders. Which if true you would think the CME would sweeten the pot with some liquidity if necessary so the markets work well enough to attract real traders and get things moving.

Interested to hear what any of the old hands or people with experience looking under the hood of futures markets think about this stuff.

Yeah, just hit me up init

How to trade using max pain like what it does and how we can use it in day trading ?

Why did this trade not instantly cash in everything but the P&L like all of my futures trades did yesterday? Will I have to sell stocks to avoid paying margin interest? The brokerage is Robinhood. I am a new and still learning futures, I've just been trading singular micro futures.

I am usually good at finding the first good trade around pre-market/open NY and getting some points. When I take more I tend to just give back gains.

Often to take subsequent (reversal) trade I have to accept the current trade is over, cut runner, and decide whether to switch directions.

This can run into problems from decision overload and transitioning on the spot. Even if the data afterwards looks good and signals were there something about taking another trade in short period of time seems to throw me off.

Has anyone ever seen this much volume in such a tight range on ES? Today I noticed a 60-minute ES candle with 136,396 contracts traded and only about a 6-point range. I don't remember seeing that much volume with so little price movement. Is this considered normal? I'm not very experienced, and I've never seen anything like this before.

How do you keep yourselves grounded when consistently green? Since the 16th I've managed to make a little over 1k everyday with MGC and I remember dreaming about having this kind of income but it just feels.... boring? I have a gut feeling its going a little too well and I'm just waiting for the first big red day. How do you keep the momentum going or do you step back and get away from the charts for a bit? This is the first time I've seen these kind of numbers consistently and I don't want my fear of loss to induce self sabotage when it does come.

After opening, price made several weak attempts to go lower before reversing into an uptrend. Uptrend accelerated towards IB high but showed weakness on the top.

Then price pulled back to a low volume node on value area. Confluence showed strong absorption from buyers with CVD making huge lows but price did not proportionally mirror that downward move.

The trigger for me was the big trades indicator printing a big sell order absorbed, with price printing a bullish hammer, and CVD candle also showing a bullish hammer.

Went long when price broke that price's hammer and took profit for 28 points.

Overall today, I made $102 today with 4 trades with 2 big wins, 1 small win, and 1 loss.

As the title suggests, I’m looking for a serious trading accountability partner. I trade futures.
Trading solo gets isolating and I’ve tried the community/Discord route - too much noise, too many opinions- not what I need.

Looking for one person to pair up with. Not a signal group, not a mentor thing - just someone to check in with regularly, keep each other honest and have actual conversations about trades instead of scrolling past 500 messages a day.

If you feel the same way about groups and want something quieter and more one-on-one, message me.

I’ve been using fidelity for years, but I’ve recently gone into day trading. Then options trading for a bit now. Now that I’ve learned enough about futures this is where I wanna head next. Fidelity, however, does not allow futures trading. I opened a Schwab account, but transferring my Roth IRA has taken 2 months now and I keep getting a run around. Is there any others? I’m mainly interested in single stock futures because my paper traders have shown SPY would DESTROY me.

Do you avoid this period ? If so, why?

Or do you see it as a great opportunity?

My biggest losses primarily have been from getting killed in this time period.

I wonder sometimes if I'm just not ready and should be awake a bit earlier or if I just suck at the open and it's not worth trading it.

I know some pros avoid this time but others do well in it.

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 All,

I actually switched from SPX options to MES options for physical delivery as it works better with my strategy. With MES options switching from physical to financially settled, does anyone have any alternatives? While the liquidity wasn't the best, I preferred it over ES as I could adjust position sizing better (typically I would trade 6 MES options at a time).

Thanks in advance.

UPDATE: Here's the source document from CME detailing the sunset of the instruments as well as the timelines:

https://www.cmegroup.com/content/dam/cmegroup/notices/ser/2026/06/ser-9760.pdf

https://www.cmegroup.com/content/dam/cmegroup/notices/clearing/2026/07/chadv26-235.pdf

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 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

Has anyone noticed any market shifts of ES/NQ lately?

Have been doing great for the first quarter. Things slowed down in April for me and completely took a turn in May,June and so far through July.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but I saw on a "volsignals" youtube video that in a normal regime the market makers are short puts and long calls. AND short futures. And as time passes the hedge of the puts and the calls need to be closed out so they need to buy back their futures. This buying back of the futures is what creates the natural upward drift of the market?

Volsignals seems like an ex market maker and it seems like he knows what he is talking about. But this is in a normal spot up vol down regime. I don't think it applies when there is a spot up vol up regime.

Thank you!

So this has been announced by them but there seems to be little fanfare over it on this sub or even reddit in general. They are going to offer 55 tickers of full size contracts (100 shares of underlie) and 22 tickers of micros (10 shares). Further details here:

https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/equities/single-stock-futures.html

For me personally it could be very beneficial. I currently trade several of those big names in poor man's covered option strategies. If this works I can get the same leverage but also eliminate the direct option risk (gamma and vega).

I heard it was tried 20 years ago or such and it flopped due to lack of liquidity, but with the mass number of retail traders out there and the vastly lower size barriers it might work this time. Heck, 10 shares of ORCL would be notional of $1,250 which I'm guessing will be about $200 in margin.

Anyone else here thinking bout it?

The reason I ask is because most of my winning trades initially go against me. Even trades with short target levels take much longer than I would like. But I tend to plan my entries in advance and locate my exact entry, TP and SL ahead of time and don't focus on waiting for momentum to enter.

I would love for my trades to move quickly in my direction but I would rather have precise entries than wait for a momentum trigger. Not sure if this is truly the best approach, but I'm curious as to what others think of this and if anyone else trades in a similar manner.

Or trade the micro against the mini?

I take a scale out pretty quick so maybe it makes more sense for someone who trades like me. Getting on the trade is the tough part. Been doing this on SIM and getting good results. My levels are pretty much always a significant inflection point, but it’s still luck of the draw which way things break.

Traded GC through this whole week and the real lesson wasn't in gold at all — it was in CL. Writing it up because the cross-asset logic might be useful to someone.

Background: gold's been in a weird regime for weeks where it completely ignores the Middle East war. Not "muted reaction" — literally makes new lows while a US carrier group is running strikes on the Hormuz coast. The reason (as far as I can tell): with the Fed in hike-risk mode and real yields at cycle highs, gold trades as a pure rates asset. Fear isn't the driver; carry is.

So the week went: hawkish growth data Thursday (claims 208K, Philly Fed 41.4 vs 12.5 expected — enormous beat) broke GC's week-long floor at 4021 and it laddered down ~$50 to the high 3960s, hitting the pattern's measured targets. All of that happened with CL DOWN on the day. That detail mattered more than anything: the gold selloff was "real" precisely because oil wasn't participating — pure rates trade, no war premium anywhere.

My rule all week: war headlines only matter for GC if CL confirms them. Kuwait's power plant got hit, tankers struck in the Black Sea AND near Yemen — CL shrugged every time, so GC kept fading rallies, and that fade kept paying.

Then today, finally, the confirm: CL broke out ~3% to its highest since mid-June (low 80s), Brent through 86, after reports the US may hit Iranian infrastructure next week — and Iran has reportedly pre-ordered the Houthis to close Bab el-Mandeb if that happens. First time in the whole escalation that the energy market actually priced the threat. GC's response so far is only "stopped going down" — but that's already different behavior than the rest of the week.

Going into the weekend I'm flat GC on principle: two dark days, a pre-loaded chokepoint closure, and gaps don't respect stops. The asymmetry feels obvious — gold carries basically zero war premium after ignoring everything, so a de-escalation gap down is small, but a supply-shock gap up is not.

Question for the room: anyone else trade metals off the energy complex as the tell like this, or am I overfitting one week's pattern? And is anyone actually holding GC or CL positions over this weekend?

For anyone considering Tradovate/Ninja Trader, I would strong recommend to avoid them. Yesterday they had an outage that made it so traders could not trade or manage their trades. Their stop-losses also did not work. In fact, their stop-loss actually made so I took a significant loss as somehow it opened a new long position after I had cancelled it and manually exited my short position. In the screenshot you can clearly see in the circles of what should have happened but did not. Based on this screenshot it would seem that I had both and short and long position open at the same time which is impossible. When contacting Tradovate, they lied and stated the outage only effected logging in, which is clearly not true. This is not the first time this has happened, and probably not the last. There are other brokers where this issue has never occurred.

I would suggest either Edgeclear or AMP (I have not used either yet).