What futures actually are

A futures contract in one paragraph

A futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell something at a set price on a future date. As a trader, you almost never hold to that date — you're trading the price of the contract itself, betting it goes up or down, and closing before expiry. That's it. Everything else is detail.

Points and ticks

Every futures market moves in fixed increments. On NQ (the Nasdaq-100 futures contract), the smallest move is a tick, and points are made of ticks. Each point of NQ movement is worth a fixed dollar amount per contract — which is why futures traders talk in points, not percentages. When I say I use a 20-point stop, that's a fixed, known dollar risk on every single trade, decided before I enter.

Why NQ

NQ tracks the Nasdaq-100 — the big tech index. It moves a lot, in both directions, every session. That volatility is exactly why disciplined risk rules matter more here than anywhere: the same movement that pays you can take it back in minutes if you trade without a stop.

Leverage — the part to respect

Futures are leveraged: you control a large contract value with a small margin. Leverage is not a strategy, it's an amplifier. It makes good habits pay faster and bad habits hurt faster. This is the single biggest reason beginners blow up — not bad analysis, but position sizes their account can't survive being wrong on.

Where prop firms come in

This is the part most beginners in India don't know exists: you don't have to risk your own capital. Prop firms let you trade their capital after you pass an evaluation — a test where you prove you can make money while following risk rules. Pass it, and you trade a funded account and keep a share of the profits. That's the entire model my trading runs on, across 25+ accounts.

The eval isn't testing whether you can make money. It's testing whether you can follow rules while making money. Different skill.

Next step on the path: pick a firm — the four I actually use, with honest pros and cons for each.