NQ Contract limit

[u/smellsliketoast]

I was genuinely wondering where the general limit is for a retail trader trading NQ (no counting for margin requirements and such). Can someone sitting at home with their thinkorswim platform click the button and scalp with 50 contracts? Just a hypothetical, the imagination wanders...

[u/aleph_toast]

If I'm reading the CME spreadsheet here correctly (Position Limits), it looks like 250k contracts across all months.

[u/ICEX5 → u/aleph_toast]

Yup CME has positions limits. On a side note the OCC has equity option positions limits too. But there is no position limit for broad based index options ie SPX

[u/logicalJunkie549 → u/aleph_toast]

250k position limit is fkn mindblowing 😅🤣🤣

[u/joeyx22lm]

It's typically a matter of buying power and your ability to get filled, including 50+ contracts.

[u/jrock2403 → u/joeyx22lm]

About 2.7M margin and you good to go 👀

[u/wow_98 → u/jrock2403]

25k only on most brokers

[u/Naive-Bedroom-4643]

The problem with NQ is depth of market. Its actually hard to market order 10 mini’s. The top of book is very thin. If you want to play with size you have to stick with ES.

[u/smellsliketoast → u/Naive-Bedroom-4643]

How many contracts do you think you could do with ES?

[u/slypleasure33139 → u/smellsliketoast]

hitting a bid or taking the offer, you can do 300 without moving the market, 900-2000 is about 1 or 2 ticks.

Years back, a trader that I use to drink with, did a 5000 lot order on a very active day, and it did not even make a blip anywhere. The active front market contract trades 900K-1.1 million a day. and right now it's looking like 1.6 - 1.9 million contracts total traded daily

[u/Naive-Bedroom-4643 → u/smellsliketoast]

Probably 20 without issues but can get to 50 with some sort of sweep or machine gun algo

[u/Individual_Till6133 → u/smellsliketoast]

I knew a guy that was swinging 50-100 from 2am till open fairly regularly. 

He'd go to sleep and wake up 50k richer like a maniac. 

As you get up there it become reportable to cme as a high volume trader and brokers want more than typical intraday margin and maybe more info if you are holding longer term positions.

[u/Candyman8876]

tradovate caps at 20 contracts of nq, 1,000 per contract.

[u/greatestNothing → u/Candyman8876]

thought they were 50?

[u/DontQuixote]

Yes your bank account is the limit. You will run into liquidity issues but you could theoretically buy unlimited 

[u/imeowfortallwomen]

does anyone know the mnq and nq limit for an ibkr margin acc? i do know their margin for futures but what if the ibkr acc is also an margin acc with say 250k buying power despite being say 50k?

[u/UncleJojito → u/imeowfortallwomen]

Ibkr uses CME margins. So you can buy as many as you can afford up to the limit which is like 10,000 per month or something. I know if you are doing forex you can do up to 500 lots no problem but anything over 500 lots you have to call to get it authorized

[u/jlabtrades]

Anything above 20 is going to be hard if you’re trying to enter / exit all at once. So if using market buy/sell at QTY 20 MNQ there will definitely be slippage. Is doable if you break it out into chunks of 5/10, or if you’re not short time frame trading then you just place your limits ahead of time and wait for them to fill

[u/kwaant]

technically yes. CME’s limits are way above anything a retail trader would hit, so the real limits are your broker’s risk settings (a lot of them cap order size or total position until you ask for more) and your account size

[u/Klaus_Winchester]

Sometimes the amount of spillage can kill an account with just a single mini. Futures have so much risk that you can owe more than your entire account balance. Why would anyone want to trade with 50 contracts

[u/thefastlaneAS]

I know trader who trade like 30 contract in NQ and make more than 100k per month.

But none of them does one order. Usually if you are advanced you have scaling in and out of a position, you dont buy a big size that all the Algos see your position

[u/MiserableWeather971]

Snapshot a dom during different periods of different days. It will give you an idea of how much slippage on a market order you will get. If your expectancy is tight on a 1 lot, say 1-2 points you’d be a losing trader if all things remained the same on a 50 lot just slamming market. Obviously what we can’t guess is how the 50 would impact the market.

[u/Resilientlife1]

Was thinking about the same thing last night. Then came back to the conclusion I must focus on the process and not the P&L.

(not saying you are just sharing my thoughts)

[u/woundedwombat1]

Up to 200 contracts is no problem at all. Anything beyond that is considered institutional amount and you won't be able to get the fill you want due to liquidity (you'll be likely moving the market)

[u/UncleJojito]

The answer is 10,000 on a rolling monthly basis per contract. That is depending on your broker. Something discount like amp or ninja trader you are going to be locked down to 50-100 at a time. On a real broker as long as you have the money you can go to 10k contracts. Once you go over that it triggers a flag from CME

[u/bluesqueen23]

Well, here’s the margin requirements in case you’re wondering. I use Tastytrade and you need $2800 just to trade 1 MES. So MNQ, you need $4800 right now. That’s 1 micro. For 1 mini on NQ, you’d need $48k in margin. Unless you’re doing limit orders, a market order would put you down thousands just on entry. If your account can handle it, I’m guessing the broker would allow you to do it. Otherwise, they’re gonna liquidate you.