Looking to use IB with Ninja. I keep hearing that ZenFire and Ninja are great when used together... but I can't find any information on ZenFire datafeed. Is ZenFire feed available for IB? If so, how do I go about getting the feed - I can't find any links or info on Ninja's website, or via a google search? If Zen is not available for IB, any other datafeed suggestions to use with Ninja/IB would be greatly appreciated. Is a secondary data feed necessary? Any suggestions for a secondary data feed? I plan to swing trade stocks and futures.
Why Zen-Fire Introducing NinjaTrader powered by Zen-Fire Trading Engine! The Data and Order Routing Engine is co-located with the exchanges and core Internet carriers at one of the premier data centers in Chicago. This provides the network capacity to provide the maximum bandwidth, speed and reliability needed by all types of traders and institutions. The engine was built to support as much data as the exchanges can distribute and route orders in less than 100 milliseconds. Over 18 major Internet carriers are used to ensure network availability when individual Internet carriers fail. All hardware and network components were built with redundant backups configured to fail-over seamlessly in the event of hardware failure. Load balancing and scalability was a key design component resulting in a system that can accommodate 1,000's of users without issue. The first traders to get on the system were market makers and black box traders that scrutinize the speed down to the milliseconds. After monitoring the system for over a year, a trading platform (NinjaTrader) was written to the engine in order to allow screen traders access to the same market data and order routing engine used by those professionals. Features now include new compression techniques and technologies used to distribute the data across IP networks specifically geared toward remote connectivity (i.e. Internet connections) and an institutional grade order-routing engine shaving milliseconds off order entry and modification. Coupled with the NinjaTrader platform that offers advanced order entry types (automated brackets, trailing stops, chart trading, etc) and 24 hour network and IT monitoring, the end result is product now known as Zen-Fire.
If you are just swing trading, then zenfire-based feeds aren't going to offer much value over IB. Scalping is a different story. That said, even then it won't make a dramatic difference. I imagine the latency/lag between the top data vendors today are in the milliseconds for ECN's.
I appreciate the responses... is IB data ok for day trading as well. I do not intend to scalp - but will position daytrade. So to clarify - most of the traders that are extremely concerned with high high quality data feeds are either scalping, market-making, or trading black-box systems, or simply are trading tons of money?
Digdeep it is my understanding that with IB you do not get all of the tic data because you see what their customers are executing in the market not everything. Therefore using another data feed for charts is a good idea. good trading, Tim
That's definately not true for futures. The disadvantage with IB's datafeed, if any, is that it is sampled like 10 times a second, so you don't see every tick or volume that was transacted. I don't think that matters though, since 10 times a second is plenty fast for my eyes, and the advantage is the data doesn't slow down during high volume periods like some well known data vendors. IB's data feed is plenty fast for intraday swing trading, even if you're only holding positions for a few minutes. If you're a true scalper, meaning you're holding positions for just a few seconds, then you might need something different.
RELIABILITY is the reason many use zenfire - I just never have outages and that is HUGE imo. Speed is top notch but the reliability is why I love zen so much. http://www.mirusfutures.com/futures_broker_company_zenfire.htm
I have tradestation, IB, and zenfire-powered Mirus Futures accounts. From my experience with Mirus, they have been very good. I've actually been to their office in Chicago and all the brokers and operators there are real stand-up people. You can tell they have invested a lot in the infrastructure and reliability of their networks. Service wise they are way cooler than IB and definitely lightyears beyond tradestation. I couldn't believe the zenfire feed when I looked at it streaming through the DOM. It was almost TOO fast. I've had them for about a month now and I haven't experienced a zenfire data outage ever (for the whole month), whereas with Tradestation, I get disconnects and chart freezes usually at least once a week. IB is still a decent, afforable futures broker IMHO but for futures trading I now prefer towards Mirus/RCG. The only things I prefer about IB over Mirus/RCG is 1) reporting is really streamlined at IB and is compatible with programs like GTT Trade Log for tax time, and 2) Universal account at IB where I can trade forex, futures, options, stocks all from one account.
OK. this is probably a dumb question....and I didn't do any research on it...but which brokers offer zenfire ? Is it just Mirus ?