NQ, ES, MNQ, MES contracts & margin

Monday 2 November 2026, 09:30 ET (21:30 ICT). NQ opens the regular session at 28,721.25. Two traders plan the same long with the same 20-point stop. One sends the order on MNQ, the other on NQ. If the stop is hit, the first loses about $40 and the second about $400. By 16:00 ET NQ has travelled 789.5 points from its high to its low: $1,579 on one MNQ, $15,790 on one NQ.

Same chart, same idea, ten times the money. This lesson answers two questions you will ask before every trade: how many dollars is one point, and how many contracts can your stop afford?

Key terms

Futures contract (hợp đồng tương lai): a standardised exchange contract whose value moves with an underlying, here a stock index Definition. NQ, MNQ, ES and MES trade on CME and settle in cash: nobody delivers shares.

Point value (giá trị mỗi điểm), also called the multiplier: the dollars one contract gains or loses when price moves one full point Definition.

Tick (bước giá): the smallest price step, 0.25 points on all four contracts; the tick value is the point value divided by four Definition.

Notional value (giá trị danh nghĩa): price × point value, the size of the index exposure one contract gives you Definition.

Terms you need: RTH is the regular session, 09:30–16:00 ET (M0.04). A session’s range is its high minus its low, in points. Slippage is the gap between the price you wanted and the price you got, counted in ticks.

Chart first: the same stop, four contracts

How it works

Four contracts, one table

NQ and MNQ track the Nasdaq-100 index; ES and MES track the S&P 500. The micros are exactly one tenth of the minis: same price, same chart, one tenth of the dollars Definition.

From stop in points to risk in dollars

One line of arithmetic turns any stop into money Definition:

Dollar risk = (stop distance + slippage, in points) × $ per point × contracts.

One tick of slippage on the way in and one on the way out adds 0.5 points. A 20-point stop on MNQ is therefore 20.5 × $2 = $41 per contract. Fees come on top; M0.01 shows what they do over many trades.

Turn the line around and you get the contract count: contracts = budget ÷ dollar risk of one contract, rounded down. If the answer is zero, the trade does not fit the budget on that contract. The full sizing method belongs to RSK1.05; M6.09 applies it to setups.

Notional and leverage

Leverage (đòn bẩy) here means notional ÷ account Definition. One NQ at the 2 November open was $574,425 of index exposure. On a $10,000 account that is 57 times leverage: about 500 NQ points against you, 1.7%, erases the account. One MNQ on the same account is 5.7 times. Your contract choice sets leverage, not the broker.

Margin is a deposit, not your risk

Margin (ký quỹ) is the good-faith deposit (khoản tiền đặt cọc đảm bảo nghĩa vụ) you must hold in your account to keep a position open Definition. Initial margin (ký quỹ ban đầu) is required to open a position held through the daily settlement (giá thanh toán cuối ngày, the official end-of-day price CME uses to mark gains and losses); CME’s clearing house sets it, and brokers may ask for more. Maintenance margin (ký quỹ duy trì) is the lower line: fall below it and you must add money or the position is closed. Many brokers also set a smaller day-trade margin for positions closed before the session ends; that is the broker’s number, not CME’s.

Requirements change, so check CME and your broker on the day; this lesson quotes none. Margin is not the most you can lose: in a fast market the loss can run past your deposit, and you owe the broker the rest. MKT1.03 covers daily settlement and margin calls.

Contract months

Each contract lists four quarterly months, coded H (March), M (June), U (September) and Z (December) Definition. In November 2026 the front month (hợp đồng tháng gần nhất, the nearest expiry with the most volume) is December (NQZ6, MNQZ6, ESZ6, MESZ6), which settles on Friday 18 December 2026, the third Friday. Trade the most active month and roll (chuyển kỳ hạn, move your trading to the next quarterly contract) before expiry week; MKT1.02 covers the calendar, M0.08 the price gap between months.

Why it is still worth knowing

Point values, margin rules and quarterly codes are exchange definitions Definition, not a market edge. They matter because they give you the shared vocabulary every broker and prop firm uses, translate any chart stop into exact dollar risk before you send an order, and let you test whether a setup’s stop fits your account budget on micros or minis.

What the data says

The dollar risk of a stop is arithmetic. What the arithmetic cannot tell you is how far price usually travels. Our lab recorded every NQ and ES trade in 58 regular sessions this autumn.

Two things make one NQ move more dollars than one ES. The Nasdaq-100 moved more in percentage terms (0.97% against 0.66% median range), and one NQ carried more notional (1.5 times at the 2 November open). Together, about 1.5 × 1.5, they account for most of the 2.4 times; the ratio also swings from day to day, between 1.2 and 4.6 in this sample Context.

Worked example: a 20-point stop, long side

Historical prices from 2 November 2026; the trade is an illustration, not a call. Your account is $10,000 and your house rule is to risk at most $100 (1%) on one idea House rule.

1. Plan. Long at 28,721.25, stop at 28,701.25: 20 points.
2. Dollar risk per contract. (20 + 0.5 slippage) × $2 = $41 on MNQ; × $20 = $410 on NQ.
3. Count. $100 ÷ $41 = 2.4, so 2 MNQ, risking $82. On NQ, $100 ÷ $410 = 0.24: zero contracts. The trade does not fit on NQ.
4. Leverage check. 2 MNQ = $114,885 of notional, 11.5 times the account.
5. Context. That session ran 789.5 points: $3,158 on 2 MNQ from high to low. Your stop, not the day, caps the loss near $82, provided the stop fills close to its price.

On ES the same 20 points is a far wider stop: ES’s median range was 50.5 points, NQ’s 295. A stop of the same relative size on ES is about 3.5 points. With slippage that is 4 × $5 = $20 per MES, so the $100 budget buys 5 MES.

The mirror and the failure

Short side. Short 2 MNQ at 28,721.25 with the stop at 28,741.25. The dollars are identical: 20.5 points × $2 × 2 = $82. A futures point is worth the same in either direction; only the side of the stop flips.

The failure. Thursday 5 November 2026. NQ opened RTH at 28,203.25 and traded down to 26,718.00, 1,485.25 points, before closing at 26,745.75 Context. A trader long one NQ from the open with no stop was down $29,705 at the low: three times a $10,000 account. One MNQ cost $2,970.50 the same day, 30% of the account. Neither number was bad luck. The contract choice wrote them before the open.

A stop helps, but it is an order, not a price promise: a stop-market order becomes a market order when touched and fills at the next available price Definition. On a day like 5 November that can be several ticks past your stop. MKT2.01 shows how orders behave when price moves fast.

The second figure puts every session in dollars per micro. The line is a $500 budget: on how many days was one contract’s full range bigger than it?

Do it on the platform

Prop-firm note. In a prop-firm evaluation such as Topstep’s you trade the firm’s account under its rules: contract caps and loss limits take the place of the margin questions above. Those numbers change, so the Prop Firm course shows them only on dated rule cards (contract caps in PROP4.03). The arithmetic in this lesson is what tells you whether a trade fits inside them.

Common mistakes

Common mistake: Treating a base rate as a target. “NQ’s median range is 295 points, so I will hold for 295.” The median is how far price travelled from high to low, in both directions, on a typical day in one autumn. It says nothing about which way, or where your entry sits inside the range.

Common mistake: Choosing the contract after the stop feels right. Decide the budget, measure the stop, count the contracts. If the count is zero on NQ, trade MNQ or skip the trade; never stretch the budget to fit the contract.

Drill: size four contracts on one morning

Friday 6 November 2026 opened at 27,169.00 on NQ and 7,394.75 on ES (historical prices). Your budget is $150 per idea, slippage one tick each way.

1. NQ plan with a 25-point stop: dollar risk per NQ and per MNQ, and the contract count for each.
2. ES plan with a 4-point stop: dollar risk per ES and per MES, and the contract count for each.
3. The notional of one MNQ and one MES at those opens.

Recap

• NQ is $20 a point ($5 a tick), ES $50 ($12.50 a tick); MNQ and MES are exactly one tenth: $2 and $5 a point.
• Dollar risk = (stop + slippage, in points) × $ per point × contracts; contracts = budget ÷ risk of one, rounded down, and zero means the trade does not fit.
• Leverage = notional ÷ account, and your contract choice sets it; margin is a deposit, not the most you can lose.
• In our 58-session sample a median NQ session ranged 295 points ($591 per MNQ) and ES 50.5 points ($253 per MES): a ruler for risk, not a target.

Further reading

• CME Group contract specifications: E-mini Nasdaq-100, Micro E-mini Nasdaq-100, E-mini S&P 500, Micro E-mini S&P 500.
• CME Group education: Margin: know what is needed. Check current margin numbers there and with your broker.
• Our lab: 58 regular sessions of NQ and ES, 17 August to 6 November 2026, measured from our own tick recordings; ranges in points and in dollars per contract.

Next: M0.06 Four questions before every trade turns this arithmetic into one question of a checklist you run before any entry.

Educational content only. Not financial advice. Futures trading involves substantial risk of loss. Not affiliated with Topstep; firm rules change; check the Topstep help center.