CME: Micro E-Mini Nasdaq 100 Futures ( 
MNQ1!) #Microfutures
DeepSeek might have changed the landscape of artificial intelligence forever.
Since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, A.I. ran on advanced computer chips and large language models, costing billions for anyone to get in the game. DeepSeek, a Chinese startup, made a competitive A.I. model for a fraction of the cost, using less advanced chips. With 8-bit instead of 32-bit data, and by using data relevant to the task at-hand rather than keeping the entire database active all the time, DeepSeek cut the training cost by 95% and completed the task with 2,000 GPUs instead of 100,000.
U.S. Stocks were down sharply on Monday on fear of an A.I. stock bubble popping. The Dow dropped 122 points, or 0.3%. The Nasdaq shed 3.2%, and the S&P 500 slid 1.9%.
Wall Street raises concern that the billions spent to build big AI models could be done with much less investment. AI darling Nvidia dropped 11%, Broadcom lost 12%, and AMD shed 4%. Microsoft lost 4%. Amazon and Meta shed 2.4% and 1.4%, respectively.
This is an example of “selling first and asking questions later”. Investors felt valuations are stretched for technology companies and headed for the exit. This highlights the risk involved in high-tech investment. DeepSeek disrupts the huge competitive edge held by OpenAI and Nvidia, making them less valuable overnight. In balance, a high-tech benchmark like the Nasdaq-100 index (NDX) provides better risk-adjusted returns.
NDX: Past, Present and Future
On midday January 27th, the NDX is quoted 21,137, down 3.0% for the day.
Once the selloff is settled, we want to ask the question: “Is this a normal correction in a bull market, or the beginning of a bear market?” Let’s have a quick look at the past bear markets.
During the dot-com bubble, the Nasdaq Composite Index peaked on March 10, 2000, at 5,048.6. As the bubble burst, the index plummeted to 1,139.9 by October 4, 2002. This represented a staggering decline of around 76.8%. The collapse was driven by the realization that many internet companies were grossly overvalued and unprofitable.
In the 2022 bear market, NDX logged in a huge loss of 33.0%, bigger than that of DJX (-8.8%) and SPX (-18.1%). High-tech companies relied heavily on financing to fund their research, while many of them were yet to be profitable. The Fed rate hikes pushed their borrowing costs up by 500 basis points, worsening their financial woes.
OpenAI's ChatGPT saved the day. This A.I. chatbot redefined the standards of artificial intelligence, proving that machines can indeed “learn” the complexities of human language and interaction.
In my opinion, DeepSeek did not cancel out the breakthroughs achieved by others. On the contrary, by massively lowering the barrier of entry, DeepSeek could quicken A.I. development and its widespread adoption. A new era of A.I.-driven industrial revolution, started by OpenAI and boosted by DeepSeek, has only just begun.
Additionally, Tech giants in the Silicon Valley are not sitting idly. OpenAI responded immediately by making the $200-a-month ChatGPT premium product free for all. The major players will learn from DeepSeek and redirect their research and development. After some short-term declines, the market will reprice the NDX component companies, setting them up for the next phase of the A.I. revolution.
A.I. and Robotic Applications Are a Reality
Last year, I took three trips to China and visited a dozen cities. What I observed there shows you how A.I. technology could be applied right now, not years away.
• In the past, when I ordered takeouts while at hotels, I needed to go to the lobby to pick up my food. Nowadays, the hotel front desk would put my order inside a robot, which would then run and ride the elevator on its own and deliver the food to my room.
• In fact, delivery robots are widely used for hotel room-service in China. They are not just in fancy hotels, but many budget hotels have also adopted them. The hospitality industry is labor intensive. Think about how much the labor cost this could cut down.
• Restaurant patrons in China can scan a QR code to review menu, order food and pay for the meal online. Many have done without waiters, cashiers and printed menus altogether. If you want to save the 20-30% service tips, this may be the way to go.
• Other emerging A.I. and robotic applications include driverless Taxi and food delivery by drone. On the one hand, they threaten the jobs of millions of people. On the other hand, they would save so much money for businesses and help their bottom-line.
The adaptation to A.I. and robotic applications is slow in the U.S. Sometimes, they are being blocked by labor unions, who value job preservation more than anything else. Another reason is the lack of investment in A.I. infrastructure and commercial applications.
On January 21st, President Donald Trump announced Project Stargate, a joint venture promising to invest up to $500 billion for infrastructure tied to artificial intelligence. This is a new partnership formed by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank.
Separately, on January 22nd, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced that the oil producing country would invest up to $600 billion in the U.S., after his telephone call with President Trump.
To sum up my analysis, it’s my view that A.I. applications are well under way, and large investment would help shore up A.I. infrastructure and steadily deliver cost-saving and efficiency improving applications across every corner of the economy.
Project Stargate, named after the popular sci-fi movie, has the potential to spur another industrial revolution. After the market correction, NDX could rise higher once again.
Trading with Micro E-Mini Nasdaq 100 Futures
Investors sharing my view could consider the CME Micro E-Mini Nasdaq 100 futures (MNQ). The MNQ contracts offer smaller-sized versions of the benchmark E-Mini Nasdaq 100 futures (NQ). Micro futures have a contract size of $2 times the Nasdaq 100 index, which is 1/10th of the E-Mini contract.
Micro contracts are very liquid. CME Group data shows that 1,279,703 contracts were traded on January 24th. Open Interest at the end of the day was 100,680.
Buying or selling 1 MNQ contract requires an initial margin of $2,306. With Monday midday quote of 21,156, each March contract (MNQH5) has a notional value of $42,312. Compared with investing in the underlying stocks, the futures contracts offer a built-in leverage of about 18 times (=42312/2306).
Hypothetically, a trader waits for the Nasdaq futures price to drop to 20,000 then enters a long order. If MNQ rebounds to its previous high at 22,100, the price change of 2,100 points (22100-20000) will translate into $4,200 in profit for a long position, given each index point equal to $2 for the Micro contract. Using the initial margin of $2,306 as a cost base, the trade would produce a theoretical return of 182% (=4200/2306).
The risk of a long MNQ position is that the Nasdaq goes into a bear market. To hedge the downsize risk, the trader could set a stop-loss in his buy order. For illustration, he would put the stop-loss at 19,500 when submitting the buy order at 20,000. If the Nasdaq declines 20% from its peak of 22,100 to 17,680, the long position would be liquidated well before that, and the maximum loss would be $1,000 (= (20000-19500)*2).
Happy Trading.
Disclaimers
*Trade ideas cited above are for illustration only, as an integral part of a case study to demonstrate the fundamental concepts in risk management under the market scenarios being discussed. They shall not be construed as investment recommendations or advice. Nor are they used to promote any specific products, or services.
CME Real-time Market Data help identify trading set-ups and express my market views. If you have futures in your trading portfolio, you can check out on CME Group data plans available that suit your trading needs tradingview.com/cme/
MNQ1!) #MicrofuturesDeepSeek might have changed the landscape of artificial intelligence forever.
Since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, A.I. ran on advanced computer chips and large language models, costing billions for anyone to get in the game. DeepSeek, a Chinese startup, made a competitive A.I. model for a fraction of the cost, using less advanced chips. With 8-bit instead of 32-bit data, and by using data relevant to the task at-hand rather than keeping the entire database active all the time, DeepSeek cut the training cost by 95% and completed the task with 2,000 GPUs instead of 100,000.
U.S. Stocks were down sharply on Monday on fear of an A.I. stock bubble popping. The Dow dropped 122 points, or 0.3%. The Nasdaq shed 3.2%, and the S&P 500 slid 1.9%.
Wall Street raises concern that the billions spent to build big AI models could be done with much less investment. AI darling Nvidia dropped 11%, Broadcom lost 12%, and AMD shed 4%. Microsoft lost 4%. Amazon and Meta shed 2.4% and 1.4%, respectively.
This is an example of “selling first and asking questions later”. Investors felt valuations are stretched for technology companies and headed for the exit. This highlights the risk involved in high-tech investment. DeepSeek disrupts the huge competitive edge held by OpenAI and Nvidia, making them less valuable overnight. In balance, a high-tech benchmark like the Nasdaq-100 index (NDX) provides better risk-adjusted returns.
NDX: Past, Present and Future
On midday January 27th, the NDX is quoted 21,137, down 3.0% for the day.
Once the selloff is settled, we want to ask the question: “Is this a normal correction in a bull market, or the beginning of a bear market?” Let’s have a quick look at the past bear markets.
During the dot-com bubble, the Nasdaq Composite Index peaked on March 10, 2000, at 5,048.6. As the bubble burst, the index plummeted to 1,139.9 by October 4, 2002. This represented a staggering decline of around 76.8%. The collapse was driven by the realization that many internet companies were grossly overvalued and unprofitable.
In the 2022 bear market, NDX logged in a huge loss of 33.0%, bigger than that of DJX (-8.8%) and SPX (-18.1%). High-tech companies relied heavily on financing to fund their research, while many of them were yet to be profitable. The Fed rate hikes pushed their borrowing costs up by 500 basis points, worsening their financial woes.
OpenAI's ChatGPT saved the day. This A.I. chatbot redefined the standards of artificial intelligence, proving that machines can indeed “learn” the complexities of human language and interaction.
In my opinion, DeepSeek did not cancel out the breakthroughs achieved by others. On the contrary, by massively lowering the barrier of entry, DeepSeek could quicken A.I. development and its widespread adoption. A new era of A.I.-driven industrial revolution, started by OpenAI and boosted by DeepSeek, has only just begun.
Additionally, Tech giants in the Silicon Valley are not sitting idly. OpenAI responded immediately by making the $200-a-month ChatGPT premium product free for all. The major players will learn from DeepSeek and redirect their research and development. After some short-term declines, the market will reprice the NDX component companies, setting them up for the next phase of the A.I. revolution.
A.I. and Robotic Applications Are a Reality
Last year, I took three trips to China and visited a dozen cities. What I observed there shows you how A.I. technology could be applied right now, not years away.
• In the past, when I ordered takeouts while at hotels, I needed to go to the lobby to pick up my food. Nowadays, the hotel front desk would put my order inside a robot, which would then run and ride the elevator on its own and deliver the food to my room.
• In fact, delivery robots are widely used for hotel room-service in China. They are not just in fancy hotels, but many budget hotels have also adopted them. The hospitality industry is labor intensive. Think about how much the labor cost this could cut down.
• Restaurant patrons in China can scan a QR code to review menu, order food and pay for the meal online. Many have done without waiters, cashiers and printed menus altogether. If you want to save the 20-30% service tips, this may be the way to go.
• Other emerging A.I. and robotic applications include driverless Taxi and food delivery by drone. On the one hand, they threaten the jobs of millions of people. On the other hand, they would save so much money for businesses and help their bottom-line.
The adaptation to A.I. and robotic applications is slow in the U.S. Sometimes, they are being blocked by labor unions, who value job preservation more than anything else. Another reason is the lack of investment in A.I. infrastructure and commercial applications.
On January 21st, President Donald Trump announced Project Stargate, a joint venture promising to invest up to $500 billion for infrastructure tied to artificial intelligence. This is a new partnership formed by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank.
Separately, on January 22nd, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced that the oil producing country would invest up to $600 billion in the U.S., after his telephone call with President Trump.
To sum up my analysis, it’s my view that A.I. applications are well under way, and large investment would help shore up A.I. infrastructure and steadily deliver cost-saving and efficiency improving applications across every corner of the economy.
Project Stargate, named after the popular sci-fi movie, has the potential to spur another industrial revolution. After the market correction, NDX could rise higher once again.
Trading with Micro E-Mini Nasdaq 100 Futures
Investors sharing my view could consider the CME Micro E-Mini Nasdaq 100 futures (MNQ). The MNQ contracts offer smaller-sized versions of the benchmark E-Mini Nasdaq 100 futures (NQ). Micro futures have a contract size of $2 times the Nasdaq 100 index, which is 1/10th of the E-Mini contract.
Micro contracts are very liquid. CME Group data shows that 1,279,703 contracts were traded on January 24th. Open Interest at the end of the day was 100,680.
Buying or selling 1 MNQ contract requires an initial margin of $2,306. With Monday midday quote of 21,156, each March contract (MNQH5) has a notional value of $42,312. Compared with investing in the underlying stocks, the futures contracts offer a built-in leverage of about 18 times (=42312/2306).
Hypothetically, a trader waits for the Nasdaq futures price to drop to 20,000 then enters a long order. If MNQ rebounds to its previous high at 22,100, the price change of 2,100 points (22100-20000) will translate into $4,200 in profit for a long position, given each index point equal to $2 for the Micro contract. Using the initial margin of $2,306 as a cost base, the trade would produce a theoretical return of 182% (=4200/2306).
The risk of a long MNQ position is that the Nasdaq goes into a bear market. To hedge the downsize risk, the trader could set a stop-loss in his buy order. For illustration, he would put the stop-loss at 19,500 when submitting the buy order at 20,000. If the Nasdaq declines 20% from its peak of 22,100 to 17,680, the long position would be liquidated well before that, and the maximum loss would be $1,000 (= (20000-19500)*2).
Happy Trading.
Disclaimers
*Trade ideas cited above are for illustration only, as an integral part of a case study to demonstrate the fundamental concepts in risk management under the market scenarios being discussed. They shall not be construed as investment recommendations or advice. Nor are they used to promote any specific products, or services.
CME Real-time Market Data help identify trading set-ups and express my market views. If you have futures in your trading portfolio, you can check out on CME Group data plans available that suit your trading needs tradingview.com/cme/
Jim W. Huang, CFA
jimwenhuang@gmail.com
cmegroup.com/markets/microsuite.html
jimwenhuang@gmail.com
cmegroup.com/markets/microsuite.html
Related publications
Disclaimer
The information and publications are not meant to be, and do not constitute, financial, investment, trading, or other types of advice or recommendations supplied or endorsed by TradingView. Read more in the Terms of Use.
Jim W. Huang, CFA
jimwenhuang@gmail.com
cmegroup.com/markets/microsuite.html
jimwenhuang@gmail.com
cmegroup.com/markets/microsuite.html
Related publications
Disclaimer
The information and publications are not meant to be, and do not constitute, financial, investment, trading, or other types of advice or recommendations supplied or endorsed by TradingView. Read more in the Terms of Use.