If you have never traded futures before, this page covers the handful of ideas you need before your first order. Nothing here is specific to Hyperprop. It is the vocabulary everything else assumes.
What a futures contract is
A futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell something at a set price on a future date. In practice, traders on Hyperprop are not taking delivery of anything. They buy a contract expecting the price to rise, or sell one expecting it to fall, and close the position before it expires.
Each product tracks something real. ES and NQ follow US stock indexes, CL follows crude oil, GC follows gold. When people say they are "trading NQ", they mean they are trading the contract that tracks the Nasdaq index.
Going long and going short
Long means you bought. You make money if the price goes up.
Short means you sold first. You make money if the price goes down.
Being able to sell something before you own it is normal in futures and is not a special permission. Selling to open a position and selling to close one are different actions, which is why the platform talks about your position rather than just buys and sells.
When you have no position at all, you are flat. A lot of rules on a prop account depend on being flat, so it is worth knowing the word.
What one contract is worth
Prices do not move in pennies. Each product has a tick, which is the smallest amount its price can move, and each tick is worth a fixed amount of money per contract.
So your profit and loss comes from three things: how far the price moved in ticks, what each tick is worth on that product, and how many contracts you were holding. Trading two contracts makes and loses exactly twice as fast as trading one.
The tick size and value are set by the exchange for each product, not by Hyperprop or your firm. You can see them on the contract itself in the platform.
Minis and micros
Many products come in two sizes. The standard version is often called a mini, and there is a smaller micro version of the same thing, which moves the same way but is worth a fraction as much per tick.
Micros exist so you can trade a smaller amount. On a prop account they also use up less of your contract limit, which makes them the sensible place to start.
Why futures suit prop evaluations
Futures are standardised, they trade on a regulated exchange, and every participant sees the same price. That makes it possible to measure a trader's performance fairly, which is exactly what an evaluation is trying to do.
Where to go next
Once this makes sense, the two things worth reading before you place an order are the rules on your own account, and what happens when you hit one of them.