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thanks fulcrum.... i don't work for dtn. im just trying to help. if you don't want to use them, thats fine.
Freedom trade, i disagree with you. if you've seen the comparisons ive done with dtn and zenfire, you wouldn't say that. i've seen zen drop a couple of thousand cars worth of volume sometimes on the ym(thats alot for that contract).... that'll def impact your trading decision.
Good luck
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
chrislb.... i said that bc i know people that are paper trading right now, and they don't want to pay for anything, which is understandable.. but its mainly bc they have very little capital.. less than 15k.. in which in my opinion, is not big enough to trade futures. i never said anyone that uses anything besides dtn for delta is dumb, i said its not accurate. im trying to help them so they don't lose money. I don't have time to argue with anyone , i don't know you or was giving you my opinion. I see people like gomi doing all this work, and i use his indicators.. im trying to pay it forward.
But for the last time zen doesn't give proper bid ask data. if you don't care about bid ask, then zen is fine..
FWIW, I think it's important to remember that in order to make money trading you don't need anything but dumb luck. Anyone can press a button on a computer and find themselves in a winning trade, even in a BIG winning trade.
The complexity comes from trying to do this on a consistent basis.
If you aren't a chef but decide to invite some friends and family over for a nice dinner, you may find that you've prepared an excellent meal and are the envy of your guests. Then you decide to do it again, only to find next time the meal sucks and should be fed to the dogs (if they'll even take it).
What changed?
I think another way to look at this is that you want to use the best ingredients possible when you are making this meal. If you have poor ingredients, you will be hampered by what you can accomplish. Then, your only going to be considered a master chef after having prepared the meal, and others like it, thousands of times. It's about consistency and experience.
What does this mean?
I think it means you can very easily make money with Zen Fire. I think you can make money with a 10-minute delayed trial feed. The question is can you do it consistently? That can only be answered by you. Perhaps you don't need bid/ask data, or don't even care about dropped volume. If in the chefs kitchen there is the choice between two tomato's, it isn't really important to decide which tomato is selected if tomato isn't going to be used in the meal.
Zen Fire can be perfectly acceptable and in fact a fantastic feed for many many traders. It has its advantages over even IQFeed (reduced latency, and better integration with NT). But if you need the tomato in your meal (the bid/ask volume), then your better off with IQFeed. If you need the tomato but can't afford to buy it, then the meal you prepare isn't going to taste the same, and all the money you spent on the other ingredients may be viewed as a "waste" because the meal didn't turn out very good because a key ingredient was missing.
Also let me add, here is a capture of IQFeed vs. Zen Fire. This measures how many updates have been received from each feed. Both are for the same instrument, and both were started at the exact same time. You can see the SUBSTANTIAL difference in these raw numbers.
Might be worth pointing out a couple of random things.
If you are doing any sort of cumulative work then a fairly complete feed is pretty much mandatory. This is where Fulcrum is coming from. If you are simply looking at delta shifts around S/R you might get away with 'less'.
Unless you need to process changes in best bid best ask that occurred in between trade prints (tracking pulled limit orders for example) you don't need a full tick stream for the order book provided it is accurate when a trade arrives. Coalescing order book ticks is acceptable for some applications.
Zen uses UDP as a transmission protocol which does not have sequencing or re transmission. People will get better (or worse) results depending on their infrastructure.
when I get a chance Chris. I can send you the files, these markets are crazy and there's tons of opps right now. I have to agree with Fulcrum et al., that the best use of time is in practicing skills, not comparing feeds. If you know you have the best ingredients then you can get on with things, and it's hard enough getting your skills down pat, if that's even ever possible! But I'll help you as you like when I have some time if you still wish it. Cheers.
You are saying, that all retail traders using T&S in any form (tape reading, bid x ask studys, etc.) without using DTN or some high end data feed, are basing there trading on false assumptions ? And is DTN compared to the feed the bots are using accurate to a high degree ?
I used DTN for more then a year with MD and Investor/RT and I am not convinced that DTN is accurate enough to compete on this with the pros. I switched from MD to RT, because if bid x ask date is not 100% correct, volume at price is more important.
So I would like to see a comparison of bid x ask data from DTN to the most reliable feed, what ever feed this is.
It is getting off topic, so maybe this should be moved to another thread
I am saying that ANY BID/ASK differential work you attempt (SPECIFICALLY, using Cumulative Delta, GomCD, GomLadder, orderflowanalytics.com software, marketdelta.com, etc) MUST use a proven data feed or you will get tainted data......sorry to say.
If you are only going to track price and regular volume then use any data feed you wish.......I am SPECIFICALLY talking about those traders that are working with BID/ASK differential tools in their charting for the need to use DTN.IQ feed (or a feed like CQG, Bloomberg, etc). We have found some testing even showing Esignal with problematic data at times ONLY for tracking BID/ASK data though......hope this helps.