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Should I consider other platforms than Ninjatrader?
This may or may not impact your style of trading, but if you are looking to get super cheap commissions this may be tricky to do unless you have very high volume. I punted this question out on the board a while ago trying to figure out who the "Other Brokers" are, if anyone knew.
I think I was looking at IB's FX section and not their futures section. It is a bit confusing the way that it appeared on the website, but I see now it starts off quite a bit higher than NTs lifetime price of .53. MB Trading would get cheaper if …
. Basically their in house NinjaTrader Broker will be the cheapest for you unless you start hitting a couple thousand contracts per month, then the volume rebates by IB or MB Trading may make that a cheaper route.
Some of the cheapest brokers don't have business relationship with NinjaTrader, but may use other software as an alternative.
And some of the newer models that charge a flat fee vs a per contract commission type of broker also do not have a working relationship with NinjaTrader that I am aware of: https://www.tradovate.com:443/
So if your goal is to get rock bottom commissions, there are other platforms that are supported by rock bottom commission brokers and newer (fixed Cost per year) type of commissions like tradovate.
If you were running a HFT style of system with paper thin margins and needed your all in costs very cheap to be profitable, you may struggle a little with the few broker options NinjaTrader has.
If anyone knows differently, keep me honest here, but I don't think NinjaTrader works with any discount brokers and they don't work with tradovate that I am aware of.
But other than this point, I think the software is great and should be able to handle just about anything you need.
Good points, Ian. I have noticed that Ninja has gone from being more widely offered to very restricted after the establishment of NT Brokerage, I guess.
Commissions are never low enough, but I don't scalp for ticks and typically have a low frequency of trading (<5 trades per day) so I think I'll manage. Also, I don't really mind the cost of Ninjatrader either.
I am leaning towards actually paying for their software and trading through Interactive Brokers, a solution I happily used in the past. The only problem is that their minimum requirement of 10K is slightly above what I had in funds available at the moment, but I should be able to pull that off.
I use ninjatrader as a reference for traiding in mt4 just because my broker doesn't offer ninjatrader support. I love some indicators that you cann't find in mt4 like order flow.
I picked SC after trying a number of platforms. It is extremely powerful, flexible and stable, the documentation and support are second to none.
The user interface is clunky and non-intuitive, it is a complex platform to learn. As a result, there is definitely a steeper learning curve than others I've tried. In fact, a couple of times it's pissed me off enough to go look at other options again.
That said, I've come back to it every time. If you're willing to invest the time and effort, I would highly recommend Sierrachart.
Is it complex to learn for even simple point-and-click trading also? I see that SC allows trading from the charts as well. Do you utilize that feature?
It's quite easy, just go to Trade->Open or Attach Trade Window To Chart and away you go... or open up a DOM for the chart and trade directly from the columns. I use the chart trade feature all the time, it's great.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I don't pretend to know everything but I have been using it for over six months and am feeling quite familiar with it; there's lots of guys here using SC that would be glad to help out
I'm curious if you and others (not necessarily using Sierra, but some other software than Ninja) have tested Ninja also and could make any comparative comments...?
Will try to download it over the weekend, but I find myself pressed on time with other trading research/development, so that's probably the main argument for sticking with Ninja at the moment (i.e., not having to learn a brand new platform and being able to focus on more important stuff).
The main argument for leaving Ninja behind is the limitation of brokers offering it (or should I rather say; brokers being allow to use it).
I tested NT8 for a spell, but not extensively; it was the first one I tried because just about everyone here uses it. I never tried 7. I was concerned about the (then) new release being buggy and the upfront cost was a bit off putting considering the broker situation; I didn't want to be tied to it like that.
It is overwhelmingly the most popular futures platform, and I did like it, but it wasn't right for me.
