Hi, I just joined OpenQuant, and can say I definitely definitely recommend purchasing this software if you are at all interested in 3rd party automated execution software. I've tried Ninja Trader, Trade Bullet, Strategy runner and I can say that in all of them they are missing Key functions / options that you really need in order to make a complete automated routing system. I'm new and am just learning, but rather than waste your time learning each softwares ins and outs i'd recommend to start here.
FWIW, I have tried out their software too, and I would agree with you that it beats all the other ones in all catagories. Add multicharts in there too, it beats that also. However, you'll notice that many of these softare companies are from Russia, Canada, India, and only one... Ninjatrader is from the US. I always wonder do these people set up shop outside to steal your code if you have something profitable. I'm sure if they wanted to they could see your strategies. Not that there is anything wrong with Russians, but at least in Canada or the US you have some legal recourse against such actions, and yes OpenQuant is based out of Russia, so is multicharts. I personally use the broker APIs
OpenQuant and RightEdge are the only 2 packages that come close to what I need. lot of packages out there discussed on this board I don't even waste my time commenting on them, it's takes serious thinking to realise how useless they are. you need to truly understand the market, and the limits of some of these toys. RightEdge has some way to go to catch up with OpenQuant. e.g. data source/broker compatibility. more importantly documentation which they're both very very poor. I'm not interested in a word said on the forums of OpenQuant. still for me, they lack alot in terms of flexibility and optimisation. I think the original Quant Developer API would be ideal for doing your own thing.. still these two packages are the best out there if you're thinking investing your time well. even so they remain toy like.. but good tools that can assist trading etc..
That's great you think that too. I like yourself have wasted a TON of time screwing around with the others. I have written my own program to do all of my analysis, however in terms of linking it to the broker myself to place the trades... I need some help. So I'm really only interested in the order execution part however is what ChrisMMM saying... could that be true?
Dierk Droth, NinjaTrader (former TradeMagic), is from Germany. - What's that? - It's me belt, Turkish. - No, Tommy. There's a gun in your trousers. What's a gun doing in your trousers? - It's for protection. - Protection from what . . . zee Germans?
I have both Ninja Trader and OpenQuant and I like both. I would definitely not say that Ninja Trader is inferior to OpenQuant. A couple of problems I have with OpenQuant are that it only allows to run one strategy (there's no such limitation with NT) and the metrics provided by the backtester are quite limited in OpenQuant. I'd be interested to hear what people think are some of the limitations of NT vis-a-vis OQ.
to be honest, I haven't had a look at NT since its adaption of C#, i just had a look at their manual book and it blew me away.. this is precisely what OpenQuant/RightEdge needs. perfect description of methods/functions etc.. now some questions, 1. Can NT code be debugged in VS? and 2. can you pair trade with NT? and which one is actually the fastest in backtesting/execution vs OQ/RE.?
sky, I really wouldn't worry about what Chris says with regard to them being able to see your code. If you are concerned just make sure that your firewall doesn't allow incoming connections. Also, in terms of which is better NT or OQ I would definitely agree with the OP as I'm interested in order routing options, OQ's rule on that you can only use one strategy really is a killer however, you have so so many more options in terms of routing orders it more than makes up for it. Also I think that the layout on OQ is much cleaner / nicer, and especially with mutiple strategies coming out it is definitely the choice.... IF you can get past the documentation. It's horrible, you really have to go by trail and error to find out what does what, but if you can get past that, IMO it is clearly the better platform
feltontrading.com will be transitioning their automated system in the month ahead onto NinjaTrader 6 charting for execution with the NinjaTrader 6 platform. The system is currently operating on Tradestation, but the plan is to have it moved over to Ninja. It will be interesting to see how it works with Ninja - probably much better order execution. I have used OQ and I do like their product.
I'm in the process of evaluating software packages for automated trading. I wrote several strategies in both NT and OQ. I'm at the paper trading stage. 1. I would agree with everyone that NT's documentation is much more complete. I haven't made a final decision on what I'll use in production yet, but I have passed on OQ for now. The last straw was the amount of time I've wasted (and insecurity I feel) because of the lack of documentation. 2. NT is more mature and stable (the documentation is just one example of that). I experienced several (non critical) bugs in OQ. These bugs were fixed within a couple weeks of discovery. This is to be expected given the rapid development of new features and releases, but it makes me a bit nervous. 2. No debugging using Visual Studio with NT. Significant bummer. From what I can tell, they are not likely to add this soon. With OQ you cannot debug within the development environment, but you can attatch to OQ using VS and debug a strategy while running. 3. Much more active and helpful forumns on NT. You get almost immediate and helpful answers to questions on NT forums. 4. I found NT easier to use (aside from no VS debugging). I am a professional M$ developer, so coding is not an issue. But, NT offers a lot of little features that over and over I found I needed to code myself in OQ, when all I wanted to do is test out an idea. If the docs were better in OQ this would be fine, but trying out a lot of ideas in OQ means doing a lot of screwing around to figure out how the tool works (with minimal help). 5. I second the person who spoke about better strategy evaluation statistics in NT. 6. In my opinion OQs strength is it's eventing model. It gives you control you just don't get with NT. The flip side is that with all that control you have the requirement of writing (debugging, maintaing, testing) a lot of code. This difference is especially apparent when you compare how much effort is involved to implement fairly standard exit strategies. NT is clearly playing catch up in this area. I have read on their forum that they are adding new events. 7. No multiple strategies in OQ. Unless there has been news in the last month or so, I would be not have high expectations of them adding this feature soon. That feature was announced in the spring, and it's Nov now. I'd like to hear peoples experiences with RightEdge. I'm not likely to work with a just released product in a production environment, but you never know...