Take for example xTrader, which costs $1500 per month (pro version) and is popular among professional traders, and ninjatrader, which you can buy outright for $1500. What justifys the price difference? I know xtrader is known for its quality DOM, but at the same time there's the option of buying the jigsaw DOM add-on for ninjatrader which is actually better. So apart from the DOMs, what justifies the price difference? Faster execution? Special features?
NinjaTrader is much better than X Trader in many regards, and obviously much cheaper (charts, automation for example). DOM is about the same quality in both. You can get static DOM in Ninja as well for a tiny fee (when trading live). X Trader comes first if you need options. Ninja does not support them at all. Where X Trader has tons of stuff for them. Another thing about X Trader, it has tons of features to connect to Excel should you need spreadsheets. If you do not need options, Ninja is the best you can get for your $.
"Free" xTrader means you pay more in commissions but it can certainly save you a lot of money if you trade small size. The ninjatrader DOM doesnt stand up to xtrader at all because xtrader will show size hitting into bids/offers which is the most important thing, ninjatrader DOM will only show bids/offers and offers 5 levels of depth vs 10 levels. Thanks for the responses. So far it would appear the price is not justified.
True, about the size hitting Dom to some degree. But markets move so fast that you can not really capture and process it in your mind. I developed Ninja code to collect and visually display it.
I have a question for you guys: with do you need the DOM? Markets are so fast and many orders are hidden afaik. I can think of scalpers using DOM but with HFT now are there any scalpers out there who profit? I guess being a position trader I don't pay any attention to the book but is there anyone who really gets value out of it nowadays?
Mainly, The controls allow for easy order placement. There's an analytical portion of watching the volume histogram for support/resistance. In really liquid markets, the big guys are just as clueless as the smaller fish. In illiquid markets, the whole book reshuffles when you place an order making you think there is an imbalance when it is actually just mm accumulating a position that will move against you.
My analysis go much deeper than that. The software I developed identifies DOM patterns. They are obviously only good for a short duration, but this strategy is exactly what it meant for. I started a thread while back to discuss this topic: http://www.elitetrader.com/et/index.php?threads/dom-acv-and-bid-ask-wall-used-tgether.103293/