Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
I trust NinjaTrader. It's a solution that has worked for us while being combined with Rithmic.
Everybody has their own experience and if you seek another platform with us, I will offer it to you.
Now, PLEASE for the love of G-d ..I have ONLY ONE thread for Optimus..so can we keep it about Optimus and related stuff to Optimus.
Trading futures and options involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. You may lose more than your initial investment. All posts are opinions and do not claim to be facts. Please conduct your own due diligence. Use only Risk capital when trading Futures.
1 800 771 6748 local 561 367 8686 email [email protected]
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Are you sure about all these argumentations?........ Any documentation about that?
For example about 'virtual orders' with NT, it's my understanding that the OCO logic is saved in your PC (in that view it's 'virtual'), so if your PC crashes you are going to lose the link between the orders that remain active indipendently each other but... the orders themselves are natively placed in their respective exchanges if they support that kind of orders (tipically limit/stop orders). Anyway limit orders are always native unless you create them as synthetic (if the platform supports this feature).
The statements above are inaccurate. With the exception of our "Simulated Stop" orders which is an optional feature in NinjaTrader, orders are not virtual but submitted to the broker/exchange.
I just posted an official response on this topic here in post #7 -
Sorry for the misinformation. I tried to preface my post by saying I wasn't a technical Wiz. I was just trying to explain my interpretation of what I was told. Thanks for clearing that up.
Just wanted to share my experience to date with Optimus from a European trader's perspective. I have been an active day trader in the markets since end of 2008, predominantly trading US futures. Over the years I have had experiences with a multitude of brokers, trading platforms and datafeeds. In terms of futures brokers, I have had accounts with Tradestation, ThinkOrSwim, Infinity, Velocity, Mirus, Optimus & Interactive Brokers. Each of them has their strengths and weaknesses but as the thread is about Optimus I will focus on my experience with them.
Little bit of history - last summer, I was trading the ES (Emini SP500) through Mirus using Zenfire on NT, when the intraday volatility was extremely high. The prior year I did a fairly indepth comparison during periods of high volatility (FOMC, Non-farm payroll etc) to compare the robustness of various datafeeds as this is always the easiest time to see any lag due to the volume of data that is being passed through. Zenfire and TT were both at the top the list at the time. The reason I went with Zenfire was due to historical tick data and smoother integration with NT for chart trading.
I enter, manage and exit trades off the charts using Chart Trader with 5min candlestick charts and make trading decisions at the close of each bar. It is therefore important that the closing prices are accurate and on a timely basis (my update interval is set to 100ms on NT). For this reason, I also use Dimension4 time synchronisation software throughout the trading day to ensure that my trading PC clock is accurate and relates to the close of each bar. During this time however, I started to notice a few times that there was a significant delay (up to 5-10 secs) from when the bar was due to close and when prices caught up before opening a new bar. Obviously, my first consideration for this lag, was due to latency. I therefore ran a few ping tests to Chicago to eliminate that potential fault and was getting response times in the region of 120ms, which is fairly typical for transatlantic. I also spoke with Mirus and they weren't able to identify any faults their end.
This led me to do some research to see if mine was an isolated incident or if others were also experiencing similar issues. During this process, I came across Optimus on futures.io (formerly BMT) and spoke with Matt. He took the time to explain about his business and their relationship with Rithmic. Initially I was impressed with his model and genuine enthusiasm to help traders. I decided to take a demo to compare Zenfire + Rithmic during the periods of extreme volatility. To my surprise, Rithmic was spot on, while Zenfire was still lagging. I believe this may have been due to their servers becoming overloaded but regardless of the reason, it was evident to me there was a distinct difference! This was enough for me to make the jump. I have been with Optimus for the last year and don't have a single complaint, which is rare for me with brokers The only reason I still hold an account with Mirus is for when I occasionally trade EUREX, as Optimus are only able to offer EUREX through CQG and not Rithmic. Mirus have also recently introduced a minimum activity level of 5 round turns per month if you login to their servers, which is something Optimus don't currently.
All in all, if you are looking for a reputable broker, with selection of great trading platforms and an excellent execution & charting feed, I would highly recommend giving Matt a call at Optimus. Their commissions are competitive and they are constantly developing their toolbox to help give their traders an edge. I am more than happy to share experiences with any brokers, trading platforms or datafeeds via PM. Please note, I have no affiliation with any of the brokers mentioned above and I am giving feedback based on my personal experiences as a full time active day trader.
Hope that helps
JJ
Trading is: Having the KNOWLEDGE to know when the odds are in my favour, having the PATIENCE to wait for that moment, then having the DISCIPLINE to handle the trade properly when it goes in my favour and properly when it goes against me
Since some days ago I have the data feed from Rithmic for NT and I am a little surprised... It seems to me rather faster than Zen-Fire. The first day when I connected with my account with Optimus I "felt" that NT charged faster the charts than ZF, but I didn't take too care. But after when by surprise the market increased highly the volume (as sometimes does in the 6E) I doubted if this increasing was really so high because with ZF I saw normally like if for a moment the DOM was stopped and after the price reappears with a very huge difference, as if it had jumped; but no, really the increase was very high but NT didn't stop, instead it gives a very fast movement impossible to follow but that I could see. After this I paid more attention and really I feel that Rithmic is faster than Zen-Fire.
Another thing that I cannot assure absolutely, because I will need more time for doing but I want to refer, is that in some moments with ZF I had a loss of connections, very few seconds but terrifying when you have a position in the market; I though that it was my internet connection despite I was watching the router working normally but... The truth is that in the last days nothing similar has happened.
(Obviously nothing in my laptop or Internet connection has changed, only the data feed).
Here's my 2-cents.
I "used" to have account with another broker and their data feed back in 2009/2010.
In the beginning, it went well, had nothing to complain about.
Then, the havoc started.
Data feed lagging to a snails pace or a complete shut-down AT LEAST once every one or two months.
Every time, they give the usual excuse, which I didn't really care for, went in one ear and out the other.
So I opened an account with Matt/Optimus.
Couldn't be happier.
I don't think I can recall a data feed issue with Optimus.
Also, service is pretty good.
When I call, Skype, or email, I can always get a hold of someone to help me out really quick.
I recently opened another account with another broker, and it's sitting there unfunded for about 3 months so far, LOL.
I just never got around to funding it yet.
Maybe because I have no reason to, since I have no issues with Optimus.
Or I could be lazy, LOL...
If anyone out there is trading CL today, you may have seen some unbelievably fast price movement . I placed some stop orders a few seconds before a news release and another one later at a support breakout area. The price moved so fast, it went about 30 ticks in less than a quarter of a second. Both my orders filled and hit their targets flawlessly. I only had the guts to place those orders because I have even gotten filled in the past right after a crude oil report. So, again, I must say I am very impressed with the order execution I get at Optimus.
Just read all 14 pages, and I feel compelled to post...
I am not with Optimus, but have spoken highly of them, namely Matt, simply based upon my experiences about a year ago. I have referred folks his way because of how he treated me. Matt is respectful, caring and a true professional.
After 20+ years of stock and option trading / investing, it was clear to me that I wanted to try something different - futures. I feel that equities, ETF's and their options will remain my bread-and-butter, but I see a place for futures too. Finding futures.io (formerly BMT) was a godsend...
Through incessant reading and research (mostly here), I had come to the conclusion that I wanted to use the MultiCharts platform, the now defunct MCDT. I needed a broker and data and reached-out to Optimus via email. I got a fast response, and was speaking with Matt in no time. We spoke several times over a week or two, often an hour or longer and at least once at night as I recall, and I'm in CA!
Since I had planned to buy MC at some point (I own it now), it was important to me to use MCDT. It was apparent to me that as a newbie, I should sim trade first, before going live with real dinero. I forgot the particulars, but it was not possible at the time to set-up a sim account using MC at Optimus, with Rithmic. Matt really tried, but it wasn't doable. Maybe it is now... He knew that it was important for me to practice and to do so on my platform of choice, so he gave me the name of another broker. I was bummed as I had really grown to like the guy. I was impressed with his professionalism, thanked him, and moved-on...
So, I paper-traded with MCDT sporadically with this other broker. The experience was ok. The support was good sometimes, and not so good other times. It became clear to me that I needed to trade live, get some skin in the game and see how I handle it. My primary broker, TD Ameritrade, had just recently begun doing futures, so I've been using the TOS platform (what I use for stock and options) for trading futures. Having a great time thus far, but I really want to get back on the MC platform. And, the TDA / TOS commissions are not exactly the most competitive. That said, it looks like they'll get me down to 5 bucks RT though.