MNQ vs NQ vs NAS100 in MetaTrader 5: what changes for an expert advisor

1. Value per point

MNQ: $2 per index point. The smallest price step is 0.25 points, so $0.50.
NQ: $20 per index point, ten times MNQ. A 0.25-point step is $5.
CFD: set by the broker. At many brokers one lot is $1 per point and the smallest trade is a fraction of that, so you can trade much smaller than one MNQ contract.

A program whose stops and targets are written in index points works on all three. Only the money per point changes, so drawdown, profit, fees and margin all scale together with the trade size.

2. Expiration and the contract roll

MNQ and NQ are quarterly contracts that expire in March, June, September and December. Each contract has its own symbol, and the program must be moved to the next contract before the old one expires. A CFD does not expire: there is nothing to roll, but most brokers charge or pay a financing amount for positions held overnight.

For a backtest this matters too. Each quarterly contract should be tested on its own data, while it was the front month. A "continuous" futures chart glues the contracts together and shifts the old prices, so a program tested on it trades levels that never existed.

3. Which price the chart shows

Futures prices come from the exchange, CME, and every trader sees the same trades. A CFD price is made by the broker and follows the cash index, not the future. The future trades above the index by the interest minus the dividends until the contract expires: with the index near 30,000 that can be a few hundred points early in a contract, shrinking to almost zero when it expires, and it changes slowly from day to day. Indicators calculated on a CFD therefore see a slightly different series than on the future, and two brokers' CFDs can differ from each other.

4. Costs

Futures: a fixed commission per contract, plus exchange and data fees. The spread is usually one price step during the day.
CFD: usually no commission, the cost is in the spread. The spread is narrow in the New York session and much wider at night and around the daily break.

So a program that trades often at night pays more on a CFD than on a future; one that trades only in the New York session pays about the same.

5. Margin and leverage

Futures brokers set a day-trading margin and a much higher overnight margin; some raise it before major economic reports. With futures you can lose more than your deposit. For CFDs, retail traders in the EU and UK are limited to 1:20 leverage on major indices, and most retail CFD accounts lose money. In both cases the margin is only part of what an account needs: the drawdown you must be able to sit through comes on top.

What the same rules did on each

Our program uses the same rules on all three, with stops and targets in index points. On one broker's Nasdaq-100 CFD data (April 2024 to October 2026, at $2 per point, the size of one MNQ contract, an earlier version of the rules), the New York opening breakout strategy did about as well as on MNQ, while the trend strategy, which trades more often and partly at night, earned much less, because of the wider night spread. These are backtest results on one broker's data, not a promise; test on your own broker's data. The budget page has the account sizes for MNQ, NQ and CFDs, and the results page the full MNQ backtest.

Which one to choose

MNQ if you want exchange prices, a per-contract cost you can check, and an account of a few thousand dollars.
NQ only if the account is ten times larger: the same trade is ten times the money.
A CFD if you need trades smaller than one MNQ contract, accepting a broker-made price and a wider spread at night.

This guide is general information, not investment advice. Trading futures and CFDs with leverage carries a high risk of loss. See our risk disclosure. Product names are trademarks of their owners, used only to describe the instruments.