NinjaTrader + ZenFire to execute TS charts are fine but not as a broker. MultiCharts or SierraChart are an option.
Earlier some problems in the website, now this. Is there some problem? Can you give some Brokers names? Thanks!
Call Anthony Giacomin @ Infinity Futures. Awesome platform and extremely competitive commissions. If you go through this link, you will automatically be assigned to Anthony: http://www.infinityfutures.com/IATdemosignup.aspx?ref=agaw PM me if you have any questions. -Fast
Tradestation is great as a testing platform if you are a programatic trader, but their unrelentless inepititude as a company and the unreliability of their platform has finally caused me to start looking elsewhere. As of 5/1/09 they are retiring their ONLY WORKING STABLE RELEASE of their platform, version 8.3. 8.4, 8.5, and 8.6 all have their problems that make it impossible to programatically trade in real time with code. They have not responded officially to the multiple pleas from advanced customers not to retire 8.3. The really annoying thing is that they only gave us a week's notice that 8.3 would be retired. I'm really starting to look elsewhere. I partially left them as a broker and just used them for data a long time ago, but now I am looking for a full solution-- brokerage and data that fits my needs.
Thanks for the reply, Fast_Trader. Could you please give more information about Infinity Futures. geoMEAN, what are the other options you are looking into?
So........I've been debating with myself whether I need TradeStation for the market internal data. I happen also to be running Infinity/TransAct with Sierra Charts and Ninja/Zen-Fire in Sim. Recently learned that, through Sierra, I can can get real time market internals for $12/mo from Bar Chart. I just subscribed. Looking forward to testing this feed to see whether its adequate. Sure would like to be able to consolidate my funded accounts with a single, futures only broker.
Well, after all our complaining, Tradestation decided to extend to May 31st the retirement of 8.3. Hopefully they will get 8.6 super stable by then. The truth is that my setup is still very tied to using Tradestation, especially their data. All of my stuff is coded in their Easy Language. I like Ninjatrader a lot but they don't have workspaces / desktops where you can save charts with strategies applied to them. If they added this one feature so I could close and reopen workspaces with charts like you can in Tradestation, I would switch to them in a heartbeat and recode everything in C#. Instead, as it is now with NT, you have to reapply each strategy to each chart, for each account you run, everyday at the beginning of the day. I run two accounts, one for myself and one for a trading partner. And I have like 10 strategies, so that's 20 charts I have to setup each day. If I slip up once, I could be executing doubly on one account because I set the account number wrong while half asleep in the morning. With Tradestation I just open it in the morning and am ready to go. I also like that Ninjatrader can hook up to a variety of brokers. I have Mirus Futures as my broker now and their connection never goes down. Literally NEVER, which is important to me. My Comcrap internet goes down a LOT compared to their rock solid connection. Esignal might be an option but their coding language is far different from easy language to say the least. Open E-Cry I've heard OK things about but haven't tried them out yet. MultiCharts would be the easiest to switch to since they use Easy Language exactly. They are a bunch of Russian people who created a Tradestation-like platform. I'm highly considering this platform. Will need to do more testing with it.
Just an FYI, you can use OEC's platform to execute orders directly from tradestation. It uses the email alert functionality (like many other products to send alerts from TS to OEC for execution). Note there is a 1-2 second lag (on average) due to email latency. I've used this in the past and I can verify it does work. There are also ways to program using an OEC DLL so that your easylanguage strategy can reference your OEC. Never done that however. There are plenty of reviews of multicharts on ET, read them for more info.
Sideshow, Yeah I use the SMTP interface (email) to send orders from Tradestation to Ninjatrader. So OEC, would be very similar and probably not free me from Tradestation.