Here's something most traders never think about until they're running a lot of accounts: when your trade copier sends an order to fifty follower accounts, which account gets its order first?

It might seem like a trivial question. Computers are fast. The difference between the first and fiftieth order submission is measured in milliseconds. How much could it possibly matter?

If you've traded futures in NinjaTrader for any length of time, ATM strategies are probably second nature to you. You click your entry, and your predefined stop loss, profit target, trailing stop, and auto-breakeven rules are automatically attached. No fumbling with separate exit orders. No forgetting to place a stop because the market moved fast and you got distracted.

ATM strategies are one of NinjaTrader's best features for manual traders. They keep you disciplined and protected on every single trade.

When traders first start copying trades across multiple accounts, contract conversion seems straightforward. You trade one ES contract on your leader account, and your follower accounts should trade the equivalent in MES. Since one E-mini S&P 500 contract (ES) equals ten Micro E-mini contracts (MES) in notional value, you just multiply by ten. Done.

Except it's not always that clean.