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CQG or ZenFire...whats the difference? Anyone have any suggestions?
Ok I'm setting up NT7, and I have to purchase a lease so I can use the chart trader. I've always just used ZenFire. But I got my broker telling me CGQ is better. Is it? Why? Or is it all the same?
Thanks
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
When I signed up with Amp initially they raved about how great Zenfire was. When they changed over to CQG they (Amp) again raved about how great CQG was. I have not noticed much difference except that CQG seems more reliable. Hope this helps.
I'm with AMP also. They recommend CQG because Zenfire started to charge a $25.00 inactivity fee unless a minimum number of live trades take place. No good for SIM trading as Zenfire still views it as inactivity.
Here's the Zenfire statement:
Zen Fire User Only: $25 Inactivity Fee Structure | beginning February 1, 2012
In order to remain in compliance with exchange market data vendor regulations and discourage abuse of market data access, Zen Fire will impose restrictions and fees on user ids beginning February 1, 2012.
Zen Fire team will work with the FCMs to help identify offending user ids and disable or create exemptions for the new fee structure being implemented.
Definitions
Inactive User: any user id, or multiple thereof, that accesses the trading engine in any calendar month and trades less than 40 contracts/ 20 round turns per month.
Idle User: any user id that is active but does not access the trading infrastructure.
Active User: any user id that trades more than 40 contracts in a calendar month.
Insufficient Funds User: any user id with authority to trade an account with a liquidating value of less than $400.
Inactivity Fee Structure: $25 per Inactive User Id.
Notes: Zen Fire will attempt to automatically disable all Insufficient Funds User ids 30 days after their account falls below the minimum in order to avoid any unnecessary fees. FCMs may, at their discretion, re-enable the ids manually if there is reasonable assurance that funds are being sent. If the id accesses the trading infrastructure, they may still be billed as an Inactive User.
What is going to happen?
1) Zenfire User ID will be disabled if: hasn't traded in 3 months or has less than $400 in their account.
2) $25 Inactivity fee will be charged if: less than 40 contracts/ 20 round turns per month have been executed/traded.
Assuming both feeds are uncompressed and raw, I'd think the only other thing to worry about would be latency from your location to where the data source servers are, as well as reliability/up time. And both are of course difficult to gauge, with the latency for the average NA user on a decent internet feed probably negligible.
I'm on CQG and use it almost 7/24 - it is incredibly rare there are problems, inavailability or disconnects.
One thing that comes to mind with CQG is that they have a web trader, where, you could log in via a IE browser (Chrome doesn't work), to cancel or make any basic changes to standing orders, should NT or your main internet feed go down. Not sure if Zenfire has this, but for a FT trader, this is a major edge to me.
I started with CQG in Jan. 2012 and liked it. Now with Rithmic since May 2012 and also like it.
CQG seemed faster to me but with much more disconnects (disconnects that sometimes take several minutes to end). Rithmic seems a bit slower than CQG (but still ok). However, almost never has disconnects (only had one in the past month and it was so short it was almost unnoticeable if I didn't see it visually).
Overall I prefer Rithmic to CQG due to the importance of staying connected.
It's my understanding that Zen Fire is a "white label" of sorts of Rithmic - but I'm not sure if it's comparable beyond that.
My experience with CQG has been that they dont seem to go down as much as Zenfire. I dont have any proof (statistics) except to say that Zenfire seemed to go down literally every other day. CQG seems more stable but perhaps I haven't given CQG enough time.