Great Morning!
I get a number of solid email / message post questions every week. Makes sense to share some of them and reply en masse for the benefit of all.
One of the steadiest, most popular questions is, “Which emini symbol is best to trade” or “which emini symbol is best for new traders”?
It’s often assumed that ES holds this role by default, simply due to the huge amount of coverage on it versus any other market. My personal reply has been the same for years, and will continue to remain unchanged for years to come: the Nasdaq 100 (NQ) is my suggestion for best overall.
Define “Best”
If we ask ourselves what criteria makes for the best emini symbol to trade, we’d probably have to start with which one makes the smoothest moves away from action points with least amount of false wiggles and spikes.

Now the NQ has its moments of ugliness, just like any financial market without exception. But… when it moves out of consolidation or from reversal points, the NQ tends to make deliberate moves that do not pullback repeatedly into entry/stop areas. It usually breaks away decisively once congestion break = direction reversal is complete.
Last Friday’s opening bell response to the non-farm payroll premarket reaction was straight up from the bell for all emini symbols. The TF (not shown) led with a quick buy-signal flash and drove several points higher straight away. The ES (not show) likewise blasted out of its patterned consolidation and did not look back. Rather rare for the ES, but it happens.
In this specific sequence (like many/most others) the NQ left consolidation patterns with a directional break, then pulled back several times for methodical entry signals offered. That is one of the greatest features NQ has above ES in particular: the tendency to hold higher lows in an uptrend or lower highs in a downtrend offers several entry-point offers.
That trendy price behavior also allows somewhat crisp stop-loss orders to hold without being clipped out on double-top / double-bottom pullbacks, lower-low / higher-high pullback traps that kick out stops on the last gasp before price moves strongly in favor of expected direction.
The ES in particular is nasty like that… by far the most back-fill emini symbol of all. TF has more of that sideways chop tendency now than its predecessor ER2 once did. For whatever reason(s) the NQ trades cleaner with directional bias as it moves from point A to point B and on to point C thru the usual gyrations that price action covers.
Cleanest Setups
I’ve spent quite some time looking back thru NQ charts at specific, defined price pattern sequences and the resolutions from there in large-sample data series. What I see is about what I’d naturally expect: the NQ trades out of patterned setups cleanest of all emini symbols with highest success rates and least amount of sideways noise. Using -4pt or -5pt NQ initial stop while targeting +10pt to +20pt NQ profit objectives offers that type of setup once to several times daily, more often than not.
I’ve said this in video conversations for years now: by far the most feedback I get from successful traders = clients has to do with trading NQ. Again, for whatever reason(s) the NQ traders seem to have highest percentage of long-term success versus other symbols trading. I’ve often stated my opinions of why that is, but the fact remains that is the way unsolicited feedback reaches me over years’ worth of time.
I have a personal affinity for trading ER2 > TF. I like what I see in CL futures very much. I’ve traded S&P 500 indexes in some form or fashion since 1999. But asked to respond without personal bias as to which emini symbol is best to trade overall, I still have to opine the NQ is it.
And I will add that I’m personally intrigued by the potential it offers in our specific pattern sequence method approach. The NQ will also have my attention this week, front & center come Monday.
Best Trading Wishes

