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Guides to trading the open.

Practical guides from the Sovren Team on the NQ and MNQ opening range, futures risk and automated trading in NinjaTrader 8. General education, not investment advice.

Diagram of a Sovren opening range breakout session in Eastern Time: ready on a 1-minute NQ or MNQ chart before 9:30, opening range set from 9:30 to 9:35, qualifying breakout close from 9:35 to 11:00, limit order with fixed target and protective exit, 2 trades a day by default with one loss ending the day, and no new entries after 11:00.
How a Sovren session runs, step by step (Eastern Time).
Diagram of a retail futures prop firm path: evaluation, funded account, then payout.
Prop Firm Education

How futures prop firms work

Evaluations, funded accounts, payouts, and why a passed challenge is not the same as keeping the account. How systematic trading fits funded futures programs.

Asadbek Asadov, founder · November 12, 2026

The NQ 5-minute opening range breakout

What the 9:30–9:35 AM ET range is, how breakouts are defined, why they fake out, the filters traders use, and how position size differs between NQ and MNQ. October 28, 2026

Start here

New to the opening range? Read these in order:

  1. The NQ 5-minute opening range breakout: what the 9:30–9:35 AM ET range is and why breakouts fake out.
  2. How Sovren trades the open: the exact rules, from the range to the 11:00 AM ET cutoff.
  3. Automated MNQ trading: the same rules at one tenth of the dollar size.
  4. Automated NQ strategies, compared: the four ways to automate NQ.

Prop firm guides

Rules for running an automated NinjaTrader 8 strategy on Topstep, MyFundedFutures, Tradeify, FundedNext Futures and Lucid Trading. Each guide notes the date its rules were checked; firms change rules often, so confirm on the firm’s own site.

Futures trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for every investor. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

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