Nohthing standardized. It is assumed 1 SIDE is for 1 contract. Can you provide examples where this is confusing - the context may be relevant here
Okay, that's what I figured. I've just been looking at all the different platforms that deepdiscountrading works with trying to make a decision as to what to get. I noticed it said per side for all the fees associated with each platform. Since the terms are used interchangeably I just wanted to make sure. If you had to pick your favorite 2 platforms that are compatible with deepdiscounttrading which ones would they be? They would need to be charting as well. I appreciate the response.
VERY hard to say. NinjaTrader is WORKABLE as long as you do not get into automatics and / or are painfulyl aware of the idiotics. It is actually QUITE decent if you do charting + indicators mostly - simply because that is the strong part. TT Fix has overnight issues (caused by TT), so that MAY be irrelevant or a bad match. MultiCharts is supposedly a better app, but we here go heavy into automatics. It really depends. The problem here is that your question is like asking someone what food is good - those platforms all have at least SOME advantages, and if those are important for you.... THe good thing is that you do not need to know now. Open account, ask howard to set up something. Change if you do not like. Seriously. You are in for a surprise there - Deep Discount is not only cheap, it is by far for most people the best experience they ever had, support wise. Do NOT expect howard to teach you (remember, they are for people that know what they do), but all normal support things are TOTALLY perfect with them. Then get a MultiCharts trial, I would say. Depends really how much automatism you want / need. I would wait for MC.NET - which is out of beta soon.
Just call your prospective broker, and ask them your questions. You can can often get a feel for whether you want to deal with a firm by talking to someone first hand. Remember many of these guys in the trading business act like they have a third grade education even though they might even have graduated from high school. Simpleton English is their Forte. They love jargon as if it makes them sound like they might have at least attended junior college. Many of the people you'll find in the trading "business" , not all though, are of the same ilk you'll find at the dog track.
I like Mirus Futures with NT. They are inexpensive. Quick to respond to e-mails and/or phone calls, but faster response with e-mails. Also, they sometimes even called me to remind me about roll over so I would not have a big truck coming to deliver actual product. As for NT, I agree if you are doing some indicators and actual screen time trading ES, there is no better platform. If you are programming and back testing, then you might want something else. Also, the built in order management is really good in NT once you figure out how it works, plus NT seems to work as a front end with most brokers. As for cost, once you go live (real money), you do need to pay for charting, but NT has different costs depending on how many months you want to pay in advance. I could see some benefits to automating my strategy in the future in that I would not need to monitor the screen anymore, or the other solution may be to hire an intern to trade for me during times I rather be sleeping.
Hola Gents, I do not suffer fools well. Great contributions; good thread. I like to see that from time to time on ET. I know all of this (27+year full-time trader); BUT~~even some of the guys here responding can teach me a thing or two, something I wasn't quite so aware of. Well, I got London to get ready for but wanted to pop back in the thread and give props. peace hedvig
So, funny story. I decided to try Ninjatrader because my methods are pretty simple to execute and it seemed like the best deal for what I needed. It has Basic charting and low fees per contract (my broker separates platform contract fees and their own) which are my most important consideration. I was using the program for 2 days before I started having problems with it. It kept showing my entry price at a 3 tick loss the moment I entered into a position. This happened off and on for 2 days while I was emailing back and forth with customer service and sending them my logs. Currently, I haven't been able to trade for 2 days (since this has gone over the weekend it's actually been a total of 4) and they still haven't figured out the problem. They say they are working on it. I've had to close positions that would have been profitable already. They were suppose to have it fixed by today and customer service said they were still working on it with tech support. TT (trading technologies) has a thing with ninjatrader where there can be problems holding past the close. I was aware of this but I've never held a position past 3:15 close and no one ever said anything about possible platform problems just trading during the night session. So this is my first experience with futures so far, lol. That being said, I love trading the emini and it feels easier to trade than stocks (better fills, smaller spread), so I'm not actually that upset right now considering all that is going on. I do feel a change in platform is coming very quickly with all this nonsense. NetTecture, I remembered your post today about ninjatrader and having problems. I figured I'd let other traders new to futures or contemplating using ninjatrader to know about this as well.
$3.80 is the cheapest I have seen for ES. All In RT. Per side thus 1.90. I have traded with this commision for multiple years.
Could be the data provider, I use Zen-Fire. The other issues could be data corruption. It sounds like you are using the ES. 1st I would reset your data to delete all old data, then from instrument manager I would get the ES Dec contract. Next save yourself a template if you are using any indicators. Next, if you are trading market hours, just use instrument setting instead of 24/7. Create a new chart, load the saved template. Finally make sure you are using the Dec contract when entering in orders, and also use a limit order to get you into the trade, since you will lose at least 1 tick if you do a market order.
You can also try Zumo, a division of Ironbeam. They have $0.50 commissions (so a round-trip with ES is $3.32) and they give you Firetip for free if you leave in the account at least $15000.