Tick Value
The dollar amount one minimum price move is worth in a futures contract — the number that turns chart points into real money and makes your risk plan exact.
A tick is the smallest price increment a futures contract can move. Tick value is what that increment is worth in cash, per contract. Learn the tick values of the two or three products you actually trade and every stop, target, and drawdown calculation becomes simple arithmetic instead of guesswork.
Here are the index futures most prop traders live in:
| Contract | Tick size | Tick value | Per full point |
|---|---|---|---|
| E-mini S&P 500 (ES) | 0.25 index points | $12.50 | $50 |
| Micro E-mini S&P 500 (MES) | 0.25 index points | $1.25 | $5 |
| E-mini Nasdaq-100 (NQ) | 0.25 index points | $5.00 | $20 |
| Micro E-mini Nasdaq-100 (MNQ) | 0.25 index points | $0.50 | $2 |
Now put it to work. Say you’re on a $50K account with a $2,500 trailing drawdown and you want to risk no more than 2% of that cushion — $50 — on a single trade. Your setup needs a 10-point stop on the Nasdaq. Ten points is 40 ticks. In MNQ, 40 ticks × $0.50 = $20 per contract, so you can trade 2 contracts and risk $40. In NQ, the same stop is 40 × $5.00 = $200 per contract — four times your entire risk budget. Same idea, same chart, completely different outcome for your account.
That single calculation — stop distance in ticks × tick value × contracts — is the whole position-sizing engine. Run it before you enter, not after.
Tick value also tells you exactly how far you are from trouble. If your trailing drawdown floor sits $600 below your current equity and you’re holding 2 MES, that’s 240 ticks of room — plenty. Hold 4 ES and it’s just 12 ticks. Knowing which of those you’re in is the difference between trading calmly and trading blind.
Get the arithmetic right and everything downstream — stops, sizing, targets — gets easier. See max contracts and position sizing next, or find a firm whose contract limits fit your style in our directory.