Understanding what is Tick, Point and margin value for each contract is important if you want to trade Futures. On this page, I will describe tick value for each point of a contract with margin requirements in a table format. Remember that values are good as of writing of this article. You can refer to this article any time you want to know about margin requirements. Product codes defined in this article are available in NinjaTrader trading platform. There are different types of instrument. On this page, I am only describing instruments that I trade or are commonly traded.
Tick size refers to the minimum price movement of a trading instrument in a market.
One point is the smallest price increment change that can occur on the left side of the decimal point.
For futures contracts, exchanges set initial margin requirements that can be as little as 3% or 12% of the contract to be traded.
| SR NO | SYMBOL | Description | Ticks / Point | Point value($) | Intraday Margin($) | Initial Margin($) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | MES | Micro S&P | 4 | 5.00 | 50 | 1100 |
| 2 | MNQ | Micro Nasdaq | 4 | 2.00 | 100 | 1650 |
| 3 | MGC | Micro Gold | 1 | 10.00 | 200 | 715 |
| 4 | MYM | Micro Dow | 10 | 0.50 | 50 | 825 |
| 5 | M2K | Micro Russell 2000 | 4 | 5.00 | 50 | 605 |
| 6 | ES | E-MINI S&P 500 FUTURES | 4 | 50.00 | 500 | 11000 |
| 7 | NQ | E-MINI NASDAQ 100 FUTURES | 4 | 20.00 | 1000 | 16500 |
| 8 | GC | COMEX 100 GOLD FUTURES | 1 | 100.00 | 2000 | 7150 |
| 9 | YM | Mini Dow | 1 | 5.00 | 500 | 8250 |
| 10 | RTY | Mini Russell 2000 | 10 | 50.00 | 500 | 6050 |
| 11 | CL | Crude OIL | 100 | 1000.00 | 2000 | 9460 |
| 12 | MCL | Micro Crude Oil | 100 | 100.00 | 200 | 946 |