Prop Firm Drawdown: How Many MNQ or MES Contracts Survive the Open
A prop firm evaluation ends when your loss reaches the drawdown limit. On 50K accounts that limit is commonly $2,000 to $2,500, so check your firm's current rules. The quickest place to use it up is the first half hour after the 9:30 ET open, which makes the question how many contracts you can hold through it.
The numbers below come from 1-minute candles in the MarketByOrder archive: 247 NQ sessions and 246 ES sessions, October 1, 2025 to September 16, 2026. For each session we took the price at 9:30 ET and measured how far it moved against a position opened there over the next 15 and 30 minutes, long or short, whichever was worse. That is a position held with no stop: it measures how far the open swings, not how to manage a trade.
How far the open moves against you
| Contract | Per point | Median, first 15 min | Median, first 30 min | 9 days in 10 under, first 30 min |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NQ | $20 | $1,960 | $2,505 | $4,935 |
| MNQ | $2 | $196 | $250 | $494 |
| ES | $50 | $719 | $1,012 | $1,812 |
| MES | $5 | $72 | $101 | $181 |
In points, the median NQ open moved 125 points against a 9:30 position within 30 minutes, and 9 opens in 10 stayed under 247. ES moved a median 20 points, and 9 in 10 stayed under 36.
On a median day, one NQ contract held from the open was $2,505 against you within 30 minutes, more than a $2,000 drawdown. It went past $2,000 on 69% of sessions, and past $3,000 on 39%. One ES contract went past $2,000 on 6% of sessions.
How many micros fit your drawdown
MNQ trades at the same prices as NQ for a tenth of the money per point, and MES does the same for ES. Dividing the drawdown by the 30-minute move that 9 opens in 10 stayed under gives the most micros you could have held through the open on 9 days in 10:
| Drawdown | MNQ | MES |
|---|---|---|
| $2,000 | 4 | 11 |
| $2,500 | 5 | 13 |
| $3,000 | 6 | 16 |
Over only the first 15 minutes the counts are higher: 5, 6 and 8 MNQ, and 14, 18 and 22 MES. A full NQ contract does not fit any of these drawdowns on 9 opens in 10.
It changes month to month
The NQ open more than doubled in size over the year. This is the median distance from the high to the low of the first 30 minutes, by month:
| Month | NQ points |
|---|---|
| Oct 2025 | 110 |
| Nov 2025 | 201 |
| Dec 2025 | 134 |
| Jan 2026 | 142 |
| Feb 2026 | 206 |
| Mar 2026 | 182 |
| Apr 2026 | 136 |
| May 2026 | 180 |
| Jun 2026 | 260 |
| Jul 2026 | 233 |
| Aug 2026 | 164 |
| Sep 2026 | 135 |
A size that fit the opens of October 2025 would have carried more than twice the swing in June 2026. Size for the opens you are trading now, not the year's average.
The biggest open of the year
June 25, 2026. NQ opened at 30,153 and slid for half an hour to 29,296, 897 points from the high to the low. ES fell 100 points over the same 30 minutes. Four MNQ held long from 9:30, the 9-in-10 size for a $2,000 drawdown, would have been $6,860 down: more than three times the limit. That is what the tenth day looks like at its worst.
Replay NQ from 9:25 ET on June 25, 2026. An account is required to start a replay.
Practice the open at your evaluation size
- Open a replay of NQ, MNQ, ES or MES a few minutes before 9:30 ET.
- Set Qty in the order panel to the size you will trade in the evaluation. It is kept per instrument.
- Set PT and SL in ticks, then trade the first 30 minutes on the DOM or the chart.
- Check Total P&L on the Dashboard afterwards.
A free account plays 5 minutes of replay a day. The Dashboard shows Pick up where you stopped with a Resume button, so the next day continues the same open from the minute you left, with the session's P&L kept. Saved Sessions lists every replay you have traded, each with Resume and Restart.
For more on picking a session and a practice routine, see the replay page.