how does the accuracy of the free YM feed from opentick compare to the "real" feeds eg. esignal, dtn, esign, etc.? i am currently getting my feet wet papertrading the YM through ninjatrader using the opentick feed and was wondering how that would differ from if i was trading real money.
The data feed is from the exchanges just like the so called "real" feeds. The bigger question you should be asking is if the fills you recieve while paper trading are the same as you will get when you go live. The answer is no, so you need to be prepared for that. There is nothing wrong with papertrading to get used to a software platform, but I wouldn't recommend relying on it as an indication of how your live trading will go. As for Opentick, I have had mixed results in my limited testing. Their sample application works fine and the quotes are the same as the other feeds but getting historical data was problematic. Where I have seen problems has been the third party implementation of the quotes like with Multicharts where the problem most likely resides with the developer rather than the feed itself. If you are planning to trade live on OT quotes, then you might want to take the free trial at one of the big quote vendors and compare them side by side for a month so you have confidence in your data...you will have enough things to deal with without wondering if the quotes are right.