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It reminds me of one thing I would change if I were still using NT --- how about the ability to temporarily turn an indicator on/off without having to remove it (and all the settings!) from your chart. Just a "status: on/off" toggle would be so awesome, right?
For (3) on your list, I think maybe some improvement on the whole process from the end user point of view would be great. One of NT's strongest point is all the indicators available for it, so the import process should be a lot better and more intuitive so you know what your importing and you know why it failed if it failed.
Also the whole "overwrite" indicator thing, since there is no internal versioning of indicators on NT, it would be nice for them to address this issue. Sometimes you need to overwrite, sometimes you want to overwrite, and sometimes if you overwrite you blow up your other indicators. I use a Windows tool called "WinMerge" (shareware) that is a diff comparison of files so you can see the exact differences side-by-side very easily between two revisions of a file.
1. Embrace the fact that it is a dot Net platform. Ditch the WinForms legacy for WPF using VS2010 Shell for the Control Center and build it out from there.
2. Add ms (not micro second) resolution time stamps and if anyonce complains microsecond is needed remind them the resolution of dot Net is 10 ms. If you need micro seconds, you are on the wrong platform.
3. Offer two versions of Ninja Trader at two pricing levels and two levels of support. Regular and Distributed. Regular is the all-in-one app like we use today, Distributed would allow for communication between Ninja instances and offer the option for more robust db usage (SQL Server 2008 R2 at the center, for example) and the distribution of trading, development, and reporting functions.
4. Real, supported Global variables. The system does know how many ES contracts I have on and what my Global PnL is etc. That should be made readily available to individual strats.
5. Portfolio level backtesting.
6. Better use of multi threading. Anything thats not facing the broker should be in a different thread. Or at least give me the option to use Data Provider X with Broker Y for Instrument Z.
Excellent list! All of these are more high end features that only the top of the power user class would want, so I think it is only fair for such a product to have a higher price tag. The suggestions from other users so far have been relatively easy GUI changes that would take only minutes to complete most likely (for the most part), whereas these changes might take them years, but a good list nonetheless!
The global variables is an easy one, I hope they will do that.
There is a gap between a $50/month application and a $5,000/month application that I think Ninja is in a better position than most to address.
Forgot to add:
- Extend the ATI to allow for better integration with third-party systems.
- Offer an Options module or unlock/finish developing the current Options functionality. There are workarounds to get it to plot options and display last/bid/ask. It would be great if there were simple tools to get it to display Options chains.
There is some stuff you can do now on the multi-instrument front like looking at the crude curve or the yeild curve or whatever but I haven't seen much on the development front. To that end:
- Offer a spreader along the lines of what TT and CGQ offer.
A long time ago on the NT forum I was pleading with NT to fix some stuff, etc. I said I was willing to pay double what they were charging if some stuff would just work (was trying to make the case that a better product was worth more money), and I made a statement that all the free users were a drain on their resources. I opened it up and asked for other users to chime in. I was shot down FAST, no one wanted to pay more, and in fact I learned that the vast majority pay ZERO.
When you consider that, notwithstanding whatever revenues they receive from the brokers for those "free" customers, I think it is going to be very hard to make a case to Ray @ NT to come out with a high-end product. Just a gut feeling, I could of course be completely off base and 1000% wrong (I hope I am wrong actually). But it seems like it would be a dramatic departure from their current method of operation.
I am just pulling some numbers out of my rear here, but lets say 90% of NT's revenues are generated by brokers. These customers are not the right clientele for such a high end product as you are describing, all of those features would be lost on them.
That is a very valid point. The other end of the commercial spectrum is roll-your-own. So your point is... how long will you have a paying customer for:
... a free product: Forever. Churn be damned!
... a $50/month product: a long time. Churn be damned! But keep a good public reputation by offering a works-as-advertised product.
... a $5,000/month product: until the customer goes bust or rolls their own
I alluded to it in another post but the main advantage of the 5-10K month tools is time-to-market. You can start trading live with industrial-grade tools tomorrow. But if you indeed do make money it makes sense in the long term to build your own system or have an extremely tight relationship with your vendor where they are the functional and operational equivalent of an in-house dev team.
But I'm OT. Need to be careful as the thread police have been quite active lately .
And I am not sure where the problem lies...if it is a NT, Broker, or data feed issue.....but the jest of it is, I would like to have the market internals added to the symbol list. Seems redundant to procure another software, data feed ect to obtain the market internals. Maybe someone could help shed some light or suggest other alternatives. I apologize if this is posted incorrectly.