[Dogpile]

YM is a well-structured contract -- the issue is sometimes the range seems to just die for a while.... lately though, YM has opened up nicely. I can understand why YM is popular. personally, I don't understand why NQ isn't more popular relative to ER2. as stated above, ER2 can be extremely noisy around swing highs and lows. I find ER2 to be pretty frustrating -- you have to use wider stops.

say an upswing begins across all indices.... for whatever reason, NQ often ticks up with the other contracts and then out of nowhere really kicks in with big-time acceleration. it will just burst 2-4 points in a few seconds. nevertheless, if you are on the wrong side of a surge, you will get filled on your stop at whatever price you put in. I find NQ to be excellent for 'stop-market' orders.

the nice thing with NQ is the way it can really stretch out --- it can move far away from 'value' because its so volatile but it still has a very strong tendency to mean-revert back towards value. I find the YM to be a little less mean-reverting simply because it is less volatile. very often, at the end of a downswing -- I will see YM (and ES) make a 'higher low' while NQ makes a lower low (ABC) --this is NQ hunting down the stops below the last swing low. as far as I am concerned, this is a good thing. more 'stretch' means further to go when it mean-reverts.