How to Practice Trading MNQ With a Footprint Chart

MNQ is one of the best futures instruments to practice on. The contract has a smaller notional value than NQ, less commission, but with similar liquidity and volatility. The goal of this page is simple: get started simulation trading to get a feel for the instrument.

Instead of using multiple tools, we will focus solely on the footprint chart.

Step 1: Get Context on the Footprint

Here we have a footprint with price levels combined - due to the high volatility, we aggregate price levels (divide by 8) in order to make the chart more readable. We see a push down at NYSE market open (9:30 ET, 13:30 UTC) to relatively new lows.

We see volume remain relatively consistent at the low with some absorption at 24380.25 at minute :38. High volume nodes or POC - points of control have yellow boxes around them.

Trade expectations - we expect to hold the traid for around 1 minute.

Place an order

1. Buy limit order: Place the buy limit at `24380.25`, right at the POC revisit area. Why: This setup assumes price is likely to come back into that level before rotating higher.
2. SL: Place the stop loss below the new low. Why: The stop can get hit often, but the trade still works if the reward is large enough relative to the risk.
3. TP: Drag the take profit up to `24418.75`. Why: If MNQ rotates back up, there is a good chance it retests that higher POC area.

Press play (you can set the speed to 2x speed). The trade is a success, it takes a little longer than expected, going forward we can change our expectation to narrow our window if we want to hold for shorter, or wider for longer.

How To Practice Instead Of Just Observe

Now lets try that trade again. We would classify this as a high volatility test of daily / high lows. With the goal of being in the market for 1 minute.