The worst thing about Ninja Trader is their use of TT credits. This happens to me every time I buy credits Ninja Trader takes sometimes days to recognize them. Right now I can't trade... why because Ninja Trader can't recognize that my account as $100 worth of those fucking credits but thinks I have $0. This has already cost me thousands and thousands of dollars in opportunity costs. I would pay double what I pay for those damn credits if Ninja Trader would just recognize them. I wouldn't use them until they fix several issues. Unless you are a piker in which case it doesn't matter what you use.
I've always been curious about the TT credit thing. If you don't mind, would you explain how that works? Mirus is my broker right now, so I use the ZenFire feed, but under certain circumstances I would consider switching to Velocity, and they feed NinjaTrader with the TT feed. Does everyone who uses NT with TT have to purchase credits (is that in addition to the $60 / month NT lease)? How much do the credits cost, and how many trades can you make w/ $100 worth of credits?
Well Since I can't trade I have time to kill... The only thing I know is that Amp and Mirus offer Ninja Trader with the TT credit fee wrapped into it. TT has a patent on a static order entry DOM(Depth of Market) ladder. Pretty fucking sick shit huh? I wish I had a patent on regular buy/sell order entry tickets... I'd be a billionaire. Anyways since they have that patent everyone who wants to use that Static DOM has to pay them 5 cents per contract. I trade about 3K contracts per month so it does add up but even though other brokers wrap up that 5 cent fee I still prefer using IB as my broker since it is still cheaper total cost then most. I bought a lifetime license for Ninja Trader a while back so I pay no monthly fee.
Thanks for the explanation. Ten cents a roundtrip is pretty high just to use a DOM... I'm glad my broker eats it (bundles it into my commission that is). I'll have to ask about this if I ever decide to switch brokers but keep using NinjaTrader. Since I'm posting in this thread, I might as well say that I mostly like NinjaTrader. I love its charting... it's perfect for what I need from charts (which isn't a lot BTW). The DOM is ok, but I find the middle-mouse-click for a stop loss order to be stupid. I love the ATM strategies in concept, and they do come in handy at times, but they don't work flawlessly with my method of trading. For example, when I scale-in and scale-out multiple times within the context of an open position, the average price gets screwed up because it does not decuct the contracts I scaled-out from the equation. In other words, NT tells me my average price is worse than it actually is, so I have to use a separate spreadsheet to manually keep track of the average price in these situations (only happens a few times a week). Additionally, when I scale in multiple contracts, but exit all at the same level, the NT strategies and executions tabs somehow think I still have some of the contracts left open, and I have to disconnect and reconnect to get the DOM to realize it doesn't have an active strategy in play. Besides these annoyances, I find the ATM strategies allow me to trade multiple contracts at a time w/out being so worried about keepin my hand on the mouse to adjust targets and stops. I'm hoping version 7 will fix the above mentioned issues.
I am looking for a API Trading Platform Software to trade with IB... I am now testing NinjaTrader...would like suggestions for alternatives...Thanks
For order execution / semi-automated strategies an alternative would be ButtonTrader. For charting and backtesting you will find quite a number of other programs.
I use ninja w/ the zen fire feed, and absolutely love it!!! No problems whatsoever, with great execution.
Id say 90% of my customers love Ninja. Ninja with zenfire is a very popular, low-cost alternative to e-signal and tradestation.
You are better off on this forum to get a straight answer! http://www.ninjatrader-support2.com/vb/index.php