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.

423Articles

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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

7 results for "trading plan"

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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Education

2026-01-265 min read

Market Depth and DOM for Futures Trading: Reading the Order Book on ES and NQ

The depth of market ladder shows resting limit orders by price, and it can mislead as easily as inform. Learn how to read absorption, why displayed size is unreliable, how spoofing and iceberg orders show up, and where DOM context belongs in a trading plan.

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Education

November 1, 20254 min read

Building a Winning Trading Plan

A plan answers the hard questions while you're calm, so you aren't deciding under pressure with money on the line. Here's a routine, a pre-trade checklist, a review habit, and the specific ways written plans fail.

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Open notebook, laptop and phone on a white desk

Education

2025-06-185 min read

FOMC Day Trading Plan for ES and NQ: What to Do Before, During and After the Announcement

FOMC announcements can move ES and NQ hard in seconds, and stop orders can fill far from where you placed them. Here's a plan for the morning, the 2:00 PM ET statement, the press conference, and re-entry, with a worked slippage example.

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Strategy

2026-05-024 min read

Pre-Market Preparation for Futures Traders: A 20-Minute Daily Routine

Reacting to the first candle is how a trading plan gets replaced by impulse. This 20-minute routine covers the economic calendar, overnight context, reference levels and a written plan, and explains why KPL levels can only be finalized after the regular-session opening print.

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Strategy

2025-04-214 min read

Weekly Trading Plan Template for Futures Traders

A weekly futures plan has four parts: a Sunday context review, a pre-open routine, a trade log, and a Friday review. This template shows what to write, the standard pivot math, when KPL levels can be added, and how to review execution.

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Strategy

2025-05-284 min read

Futures Gaps: Fill or Extend? A Checklist and a Test Plan Instead of Folk Statistics

Not every overnight gap fills, and no fixed fill rate belongs in a trading plan without your own data. This guide gives a four-question checklist, entry rules for fills and extensions, a hypothetical ES example, and a way to collect your own gap statistics.

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