Tick & tick value
The smallest price increment a contract can move, and how much that move is worth in dollars per contract.
Learning & education / TradeBridge Venture
04.1 / TradeBridge Venture
Learn the market.
Respect the risk.
TradeBridge Venture is the trading and investing arm of ZSZ Asset Management. This page shares the educational foundations behind it — how markets work, how futures contracts are structured, and why disciplined risk management matters more than any single strategy.
The learning path
- 01
Market foundations
- How exchanges match buyers and sellers, and what the bid, ask, and spread tell you
- Market, limit, and stop orders — and when each one makes sense
- Trading sessions, liquidity, and why volatility clusters around the open
- 02
Futures & micro contracts
- What a futures contract is: an agreement on a price for a future date, marked to market daily
- Margin and leverage — a small deposit controls a much larger position, so losses can exceed expectations
- Quarterly expirations (March, June, September, December) and rolling to the next contract
- 03
Risk management
- Decide the maximum loss per trade before entering, then size the position to fit it
- Use stop orders and a daily loss limit to keep one bad day from becoming a bad month
- Think in terms of risk-to-reward and expectancy, not win rate alone
- 04
Strategy development & testing
- Define rules precisely — entry, exit, stop, and time window — so a strategy can be tested
- Backtest on historical data, then forward-test on a simulated account before using real capital
- Watch for overfitting: a strategy tuned too closely to past data rarely holds up live
- 05
Discipline & review
- Keep a trading journal: setup, reason, result, and what you would change
- Review performance weekly and change one variable at a time
- Recognize when to step away — overtrading is one of the most common ways accounts decline
Key concepts
The vocabulary
that matters.
Contract multiplier
The dollar amount per one point of the underlying index. It determines how much a position gains or loses as price moves.
Opening range
The high and low set in the first minutes of a session. Breakout strategies watch for price to move decisively beyond it.
Drawdown
The decline from an account's peak to its lowest point before a new peak. A core measure of how painful a strategy is to hold.
Expectancy
The average amount a strategy makes or loses per trade, combining win rate with the size of average wins and losses.
Slippage
The difference between the price you expected and the price you received — often larger in fast or thin markets.
Reference / Micro equity index futures (CME)
| Contract | Tracks | Multiplier | Min. tick | Tick value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MES — Micro E-mini S&P 500 | S&P 500 Index | $5 × index | 0.25 pt | $1.25 |
| MNQ — Micro E-mini Nasdaq-100 | Nasdaq-100 Index | $2 × index | 0.25 pt | $0.50 |
Contract specifications can change — always confirm current details with the exchange and your broker.
Important
Risk disclosure
Educational content only. Nothing on this page is investment, legal, or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security, futures contract, or other instrument.
Trading involves substantial risk. Futures and other leveraged products can result in losses greater than your initial deposit and are not suitable for every investor. Only trade with capital you can afford to lose.
Past results are not a guide to the future. Historical and backtested performance has inherent limitations and does not guarantee future results.
Questions?