Automated futures trading from Korea, from the broker API that carries the order to the CME tick value and the rented account warning

2026-10-29

If you build your own automated futures trading program in Korea, what does an order pass through before it reaches the exchange in Chicago?

There is only one route.

It goes through the overseas futures API of a Korean broker and leaves from an account opened in your own name at that broker.

The top YouTube results are mostly vendor demos and stories of people who stopped halfway through building one. This post covers what to check first, in order: the broker's developer documents, the CME contract specs and the warning from Korea's Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).

1.The route an order takes: a broker's overseas futures API

Overseas futures API: a broker's channel that lets other programs get overseas futures prices and send orders.

Kiwoom Securities keeps a separate product, OpenAPI-W, just for overseas derivatives. Its developer guide says it is a control called KFOpenAPI.OCX that has to be registered in Windows, and the module is downloaded from the Open API menu on Kiwoom's website (Kiwoom OpenAPI-W developer guide).

Login happens in a window Kiwoom provides, with an ID, a password and a certificate password. The guide's version handling steps say the last login entry is typed by hand even when automatic handling is chosen.

For mock trading, you tick the box at the bottom right of the login window and sign in with a mock trading ID. The WKOA Studio tool that ships with it connects only to the mock server. The guide also lists an error for price queries sent too often.

Korea Investment & Securities keeps a separate overseas futures and options category in its official REST repository. The account suffix for an overseas futures and options account is 08, and on October 25 the example folder held 35 items, including margin details and market hours (Korea Investment & Securities repository).

Even when it is sold as AI futures trading, the order still goes through this API and leaves from a broker account. The AI only helps with the decision. The keys and the account belong to the broker where a person opened them.

2.The numbers to put in the code: CME contract specs

A trading program reads prices in points and counts profit and loss in dollars. The numbers that connect the two are the contract unit and the tick value.

In the CME specs, the Micro E-mini Nasdaq-100 (MNQ) is worth $2 per index point. The smallest move is 0.25 points, and that one tick is worth $0.50 (CME MNQ specs).

The E-mini Nasdaq-100 (NQ) is $20 per point, so the same 0.25-point tick is worth $5.00 (CME NQ specs).

Same tick size, ten times the contract.

A stop size counted with an assumption

Assume a stop of 20 points. One MNQ contract loses $40, one NQ contract loses $400, and in both cases that is 80 ticks. The tick count is the same, and only the dollar value of each tick differs.

Change one letter of the symbol from MNQ to NQ, and the same signal makes ten times the profit or loss. That is why the symbol and its dollar value per point belong in one place in the code.

If the line that sets order size reads the same value, switching contracts leaves only one spot to change. The same goes for the tick size used to round stop and limit prices, which is 0.25 points for both contracts.

The hour the market rests every day

CME Globex trades from Sunday 18:00 to Friday 17:00, US Eastern time. Every day from 17:00 to 18:00 is a maintenance period, and trading stops.

In Korean time that is 06:00 to 07:00 during US daylight saving time, and 07:00 to 08:00 after daylight saving ends on November 1. Fixing the program clock in the week the clocks change is covered in our Nasdaq automated trading post.

The contract month that changes every quarter

MNQ lists quarterly contracts for March, June, September and December, five consecutive quarters at a time. Trading ends at 09:30 Eastern on the third Friday of the contract month, which for the December 2026 contract is December 18.

A program that does not know the expiry keeps holding a contract that is ending, or never moves to the next month. If the program calculates the roll date itself, it keeps running even when a person forgets.

3.The account must be in your name at the broker: the rented account warning

In 2024 the FSS found 1,428 illegal investment sites and posts and asked for them to be blocked, and it referred 60 of them to the police. By product, 8 of those, or 13%, involved derivatives such as overseas futures (Newsis, 2025-02-23).

The same report describes the pitch of getting around entry rules. Individuals in Korea face hurdles to trade futures and options, such as a basic deposit of 10 million won and completing training and mock trading, and these operators gather people by offering to lend an account without them.

Once money goes in, they say prices crashed and keep it, or ask for more. The FSS said rented futures accounts are illegal and are often fake accounts running on fake programs.

If a program only works after a deposit into the vendor's own account, compare that with this warning. A broker API connects only to an account opened in your own name.

The FSS consumer portal FINE has a lookup for licensed companies. In September 2025 a fraudster tried to plant a scam email in that menu, so the FSS advised checking again by phone or on the company website (Asia Economy, 2025-09-11).

4.The list to clear before switching it on

Clear these one by one before any real money goes in.

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