Trading Knowledge Base

Build a Trading Process

Learn how futures work, set risk before the trade, and test your rules. A good result starts with a process you can review.

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Start HereNew to YMI? These guides cover the basics.

Education

What Is Futures Trading? How Contracts, Margin and Tick Values Work

A futures contract turns price moves into dollars through a multiplier, and margin controls exposure far larger than the cash you post. This guide walks through contract math, a worked ES trade, how futures differ from stocks, the tax basics, and common beginner mistakes.

5 min read →

Strategy

How KPL Levels Work in ES and NQ: A Worked Example

KPL levels are fixed reference prices anchored to the regular session opening print. This worked example uses hypothetical numbers to show how to plan a trade at a level, compute breakeven, and test whether the levels mean anything in your own records.

3 min read →

Automated Trading

NinjaTrader 8 Automated Strategies: A Beginner's Guide to Futures Automation

Automation on NinjaTrader 8 removes some emotional errors but adds new ones: bad settings, curve-fit backtests and technology failures. This guide covers how strategies run, how to import and test one, how to judge a pre-built bot, and what can go wrong.

5 min read →

Education

Systematic vs. Discretionary Futures Trading: Which Approach Fits You?

Systematic trading follows written rules for every decision, discretionary trading adds judgment in real time, and most traders land somewhere between. Compare what each approach demands, how each fails, how to test which suits you, and how a fixed level map can combine both.

4 min read →

Prop Firms

Prop Firm Consistency Rules: How to Read the Math Before You Trade

A consistency rule can stop you from passing even after you hit the profit target. This guide shows how the common best-day percentage works, why firm definitions change the answer, how to track it daily and how to check a firm's current rules.

5 min read →

Education

Your First Week of Live Futures Trading: A Day-by-Day Checklist

The first live week tests habits that simulation never touches. This day-by-day checklist covers pre-launch checks, half-size starts, journaling, stop discipline and a structured Friday review, so the week's main output is data about your execution rather than profit.

5 min read →

Choose what you want to work on

You don't need to read the whole archive. Start with a guide that answers the question you have today.

Plan an ES or NQ session

Prepare before the open, learn what the opening price tells you, then review the levels you used.

See the KPL workflow

Set up NinjaTrader and test your rules

Check your workspace and account, run a test, and review the results before enabling a strategy.

Read the bot setup and limits

Track risk and review your trades

Record the same fields on every trade. Use those records to check your risk and losing-streak estimates.

Check your trade and losing-streak numbers

Understand stock and ETF chart signals

Learn the framework, compare trading instruments, and check how a signal behaves in a falling market.

See the TradingView indicator workflow

NewLatest articles from the YMI team

Psychology

How to Handle Losing Weeks and Drawdowns in Futures Trading

A losing week doesn't prove your system is broken, and it doesn't prove it's fine. Here's how to estimate how bad normal streaks get, a four-question diagnosis, and a response plan for each type of drawdown.

4 min read →

Futures Trading

Futures Trading Room 7-Day Trial: What to Check Before You Pay

Most futures trading room pitches are vague about what you actually get. Here is how to test a 7-day trial in a week: what a daily ES/NQ level sheet should show, how to judge the community, what to journal, and when to cancel.

4 min read →

Strategy

Pairs Trading Basics: Hedging One Position Against a Correlated One

Pairs trading means going long one asset and short a related one so market direction matters less and the spread matters more. This guide covers dollar and beta weighting, an ES versus NQ sizing example, calendar spreads, and the risks that remain.

4 min read →

Tech Setup

NinjaTrader ATM Strategies: Setting Up Stops, Targets and Brackets for ES and NQ

Entering a futures trade and forgetting the stop is an expensive mistake. NinjaTrader 8's ATM strategies attach a stop and targets to an entry you place yourself. Here's how to size them in ticks, a scale-out example with real dollar math, and the failure modes.

4 min read →

Education

Using SIM Trading to Test Futures Strategy Changes Before Going Live

Most strategy tweaks get tested the expensive way, with real money and a few bad days. A SIM account is a cheaper place to run the test. Here's a one-variable workflow, the sample-size math, the NinjaTrader 8 setup, and what SIM can't tell you.

4 min read →

Psychology

Fear of Risk: Why Under-Sizing and Endless Prep Keep Futures Traders Stuck

Some futures traders size so small that costs eat the edge, and others stay in simulation indefinitely. Both look like caution and both are avoidance. Here's how to tell risk management from risk avoidance, with a hypothetical cost example and a plan for sizing up.

5 min read →

Technology

Prediction Markets and Futures Trading: What Kalshi Prices Can and Can't Tell You

Event contract prices on platforms like Kalshi give a market-priced probability for things like Fed decisions and data releases. Here is how to read the price, what spreads and fees do to it, and how it can inform exposure around an event.

3 min read →

Tech Setup

Realistic Expectations for Trading Bots: What Automated Futures Strategies Can and Can't Do

A bot that works on paper still has losing trades, losing days and technical failures. Here is the math on streaks, how to separate strategy losses from infrastructure problems, how to size for drawdown, and why prop firm automation rules need checking first.

4 min read →

All articles

6 results for "stop loss"

FeaturedEducation

2026-02-074 min read

10 Futures Trading Mistakes Beginners Make (And How to Avoid Them)

Most beginner futures mistakes are about size, rules and behavior, not market insight. This guide covers ten of them with the actual math: position size on ES and micros, stop widening, daily loss limits, sample size, and event risk, plus what to do about each.

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Tech Setup

2025-11-144 min read

NinjaTrader Bracket Orders: ATM Strategy Stop and Target Setup

A bracket attaches a stop and profit target to your position. This guide covers how ATM Strategies work in NinjaTrader 8, ES and NQ tick math, scale-out targets, stop types and what they can't protect against, and how to verify your setup in SIM before using it live.

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Calculator, notebook and pencil on a work desk

Risk Management

December 10, 20254 min read

Risk Management in Automated Trading: Limits, Sizing and Kill Switches

Automation executes whatever risk rules you configure, including bad ones. This guide covers daily loss limits, sizing from tick values, expectancy, drawdown recovery arithmetic and how to test a kill switch, with hypothetical examples.

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Risk Management

March 21, 20255 min read

How to Set a Stop Loss in Futures Trading

A stop only protects you if it is sized, placed and understood correctly. This guide covers fixed, ATR, structure and trailing stops, the contract math for ES and MES, order types and slippage, ATM brackets in NinjaTrader, and how prop firm limits interact with your trade stops.

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Strategy

2026-03-165 min read

ATR for Futures Traders: Sizing Stops and Contracts by Volatility

A stop that looks reasonable on a chart can be far too tight for that day's volatility. Average True Range turns movement into a number you can use for stop distance, targets and contract count. This guide uses hypothetical worked examples for ES, MES and NQ.

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Strategy

2025-05-214 min read

Stop Loss Strategies for Futures Trading: Where to Place Stops and How to Size From Them

Your stop sets how much a trade can cost you, and position size should follow from it, not the other way around. This guide covers structure, ATR, time, and dollar stops, the sizing formula, common placement errors, and breakeven management.

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