Start cost · approaches · farm instrument list · micros · DEV · farm estimates
Farm day-margin / practical cash estimates. Not live broker quotes / overnight SPAN. Cards use instrument-specific min start. Basics path: prefer micro (M*) / forex 0.01 / e-mini when listed — always start with the smallest contract. size_class: micro | mini | full. Default com = 2.40/side unless noted.
Smallest contract first (micro / 0.01). MM off. Fixed 1 lot. School / baseline path.
Hypothetical MM ladder — slow step-up. Gain $1,000 → add 1 lot, max 2.
Hypothetical middle lane. Gain $500 → add 1 lot, max 3.
Hypothetical ceiling probe. Gain $500 → add 1 lot, max 8.
Loading live table from /api/min_start_1lot.json…
| Instrument | Class | Full / mini min | Micro | Basics min | Unit | Tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Contract | Micro | Tested | Status | Days | Newest bar | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US index The core. Deep books, tight spreads, and a real session open - which matters because every playbook here is session-anchored (pre-session hi | ||||||
| NQ E-mini Nasdaq 100 | MNQ | NQ | testing | 647 | 2026-07-31 | |
| ES E-mini S&P 500 | MES | ES | testing | 647 | 2026-07-31 | |
| YM E-mini Dow | MYM | YM | testing | 638 | 2026-07-31 | |
| RTY E-mini Russell 2000 | M2K | RTY | add | 647 | 2026-07-31 | The obvious gap. Small-cap, higher beta, and it genuinely diverges from the other three - a fourth market rather than a fourth look at the same tape. |
| Metals Different drivers from equity indices, and gold already produces the farm's most active cells. | ||||||
| GC Gold | MGC | GC | testing | 646 | 2026-07-31 | |
| SI Silver | SIL | SI | add | 647 | 2026-07-31 | Was excluded as 'not subscribed on this feed'. That was measured while the downloader was broken; it pulled 16.9 MB of 1-minute history on 2026-07-29. Never unsubscribed - simply never fetched. |
| HG Copper | MHG | MHG | add | — | — | Industrial demand rather than risk sentiment, and it trends. Nothing else in the book behaves like it. |
| Energy Its own supply-driven character, and CL has the session structure the playbooks assume. | ||||||
| CL WTI Crude | MCL | CL | testing | 647 | 2026-07-31 | |
| NG Natural Gas | — | NG | add | 646 | 2026-07-31 | Same false exclusion as silver - 15.1 MB pulled on 2026-07-29. High volatility; expect the parameter sweep to matter far more here than on the indices. |
| FX Four majors, agreed 2026-07-29. Futures rather than spot: same platform, same cost model, and a settlement that gives session logic somethin | ||||||
| 6E Euro FX | M6E | 6E | testing | 649 | 2026-07-31 | |
| 6B British Pound | M6B | 6B | add | 653 | 2026-07-31 | |
| 6A Australian Dollar | M6A | 6A | add | 655 | 2026-07-31 | |
| 6J Japanese Yen | MJY | 6J | add | — | — | Completes the four majors. Carries genuine Bank of Japan intervention risk - a tail no backtest contains. Size for it rather than avoid it. |
| Crypto The best fit in the book for ICT-derived logic - sweeps, fair value gaps and stop hunts describe a retail-heavy, leverage-heavy market, whic | ||||||
| MBT Micro Bitcoin | — | MBT | add | 476 | 2026-06-13 | Micro first and mean it: being wrong on a full BTC contract costs a hundred times more than being wrong on MBT for exactly the same information. WATCH THE EXPIRY - the platform is showing 07-26, which expires within days. |
| MET Micro Ether | — | MET | add | — | — | |
| Rates A genuinely different regime driver, and completes the macro picture. | ||||||
| ZN 10-Year T-Note | — | ZN | add | 652 | 2026-07-31 | Third of the falsely excluded nine - 21.1 MB pulled on 2026-07-29, the largest of the set. |
| Europe A different region and a different session - the only group here that is not anchored to the New York open. Requested by David 2026-07-29. | ||||||
| FDAX DAX | FDXS | FDXS | add | 466 | 2026-06-13 | IN, but it CANNOT be tested as configured. Every playbook in this farm anchors on the New York open - pre-session high/low, killzones, the sweep into 09:30 NY. DAX opens in Frankfurt. Running it unchanged produces a false negative, not a result, and this farm has already lost eight weeks to an absence read as a finding. The session parameters must be moved to Frankfurt hours FIRST, and that is a change to what the playbook means, so it is David's call. Stale data already on PC4 from mid-June. |
| M6A/M6B/MICD/MISF | Micro FX duplicates of the majors above, or minor crosses. One contract per underlying. | |||||
| FSXE | Micro EuroStoxx 50 - duplicates the DAX European exposure. | |||||
| EURCHF / EURGBP | Range-bound grinders, poor material for breakout and fair-value-gap logic. | |||||
| MMC 03-25 / MSC 03-25 | Contracts expired March 2025, more than a year ago. | |||||
| spot FX / spot crypto | A second feed and a second execution path. The farm has three machines and one of them is producing; widening the surface area before that is fixed buys risk, not coverage. | |||||
Policy: Always list mini/micro as first-class rows. Prefer basics_symbol for starting capital on cards when present. Also see production Instrument book: /instruments.html (coverage / testing status — different page).