Overall they are good. Live chat and helpful. Good stats on your trades. Only thing Ive found that I dont like much is that only way to fund your account is thru wire only. no check option. commissons are little better than most for Ninjatrader. 3.80 RT
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After noticing that at least one respected member of this forum (I forget which one right now) was impressed by the realtime quality of TT data feed compared to ZenFire, I tried to look for a good TT broker. I think Velocity was the only one that I found which openly emphasized server-side quality and speed.
My thinking was that the particular implementation of the TT data feed (Trading Technologies) at Velocity might eventually turn out to be superior to ZenFire due to higher or equal quality server technology and/or less commercial over-exposure, but that is only a guess on my part, and not tested. In fact I have seen very good results from Mirus with ZenFire in the past, but I try to keep my mind open to new possibilities.
Based on a casual survey of the web it seems that TT data feed varies widely depending on which broker implements it. I am not qualified to properly describe or really evaluate the ideal server requirements for achieving the best data quality, but I think of them intuitively as "exchange co-located servers" or something like that. Those may be marketing "buzz-words" for some people, but it sounds potentially credible to me. I have not done any research of my own yet. I have not opened an account at Velocity yet.
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Interestingly, I have an account at AMP (clears through Velocity) and my broker tells me most of the customers--and even the firm itself--use NT/ZF, not NT/TT.
When trading, I experience no difference between the two feeds. (Be advised TT does not collect historical tick data.)
I've been with Velocity for about 2 years.
They've been very responsive, nice and with a very good costumer support. Normally they answer mails within minutes. So on the costumer support side, there's nothing to say that is bad! Only positive things are to be added here.
When we speak about commissions, they're negotiable, and the guys are flexible as well.
I used to trade with the Xtrader subscription variant, and they offered me two month with level 2 commission, even before they could see the ammount of tradings I was making.
They also have a bunch of platforms to offer.
If we speak about the Xtrader. First of all, in case you need charts, XTrader has a java implemented chart option that's very basic. It gives you historical data that goes back all the way to when the contract was born. For i.e. if you trade the september contract, you'll normally get data from the time the contract started to trade. After that you have to change (in september), to a new contract, and you'll loose all the historical data. You can't merge them.
If you think in terms of using custom indicators, forget about it. Xtrader is first and foremost a front end. The charting option is a small bonus.
Now, it is possible though to connect the TT data with Ninja. As someone mentioned before, it lacks historical data. This means that in order to collect data, you have to leave your NT open connected to TT. If you disconnect it for, let's say an hour or 5 minutes, you'll lack that amount of time you've had it disconected.
So it's a poor solution, unless you're not willing to have your NT-TT-PC on constantly. Then it works fine.
I've had my NT connected to my TT, but not the live version, the simulator version. No difference here, only different servers. Sim was also live.
What can I tell you about this?
Well, I had CL up in order to compare the two. The two meaning XTrader live version vs NT+TT (sim). Remember sim is live!
What happened?
When CL was trading light, meaning during the European morning session, the both worked identical. No lag, no freezing, just fine and stable.
When the US markets opened and CL started to trade heavy, especially during news periods.
The NT doom with sim feed, could never keep up with the Xtrader live version. It normally, kind of got overheated, and it started to lag with ticks. It had a lag of 1 second up to 3-4.
This was very annoying, so I decided to try out the Zen-Fire demo (also live feed, for a limited amount of time).
NT could see the light again! Now it worked, and Ninja+Zen-Fire could keep up with XTrader live version. No more freezing and lag.
My conclusion!
But remeber this is just my observation, and it's subjective. In case we get more people to follow, then it means that NT works best with Zen-Fire. So in case you want to use Ninja then it's better with Zen-Fire. If you want to go for XTrader, then use it as an independent front end, and look for a charting aplication outside. Of course you can still use NT but you'd need to get feed that's compatible.
One more thing to be said about the Xtrader. You can only be connected to one exchange at a time.
That's kind of it. I hope I've added to the equation!
We all struggle to make tomorrow look like yesterday!
Get rid of your past and let the future unfold from the now. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
/George
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Be aware that one of my customers showed me, side by side, where T&S data from Zen-Fire and TT were sometimes polar opposites. Meaning a block order on the ask side on one would show as a bid order on the other, and not just one time either. Beware.
So what do you mean? That this all thing is a big fraud?! Who's lying? I thought these things happened only in Forex!
We all struggle to make tomorrow look like yesterday!
Get rid of your past and let the future unfold from the now. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
/George
This is cos NT connects to Zen_Fire thru API and for connects to TT it uses FIX protocol that is not the most efficent protocol.
Xtrader is direct connected to the exchange and may is the best choise for speed and reliability.
Thanks for adding. But please make me understand this correctly. I lack knowledge about how the API and FIX protocol works. So please, in your opinion, which one is the Best XTrader or Zen-Fire?
Thank you in advance!
We all struggle to make tomorrow look like yesterday!
Get rid of your past and let the future unfold from the now. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
/George
I wil try here to do an analysis and comparation on different data feeds and platforms to perfom studies involving bid/ask data, like comulative bid/ask difference or delta bars and footprint like.
I have no knowledge about programming on FIX or API, but I know that FIX adds a layer to API, so one more step for data, btw I re-read your post and is strange that u experieced so hig lag with NT/TT, maybe is cos TT live is different from Sim, look here: (sim on the left)
Anyway lately seems that Zen-Fire has some problem not in term of speed but to keep all the ticks, especially in fastest market, this may also to maintain the speed.
X-Tradex is better but the platform is not so user friendly like NT, or better is a bit complex, and the cost is very high.
Luke.
Take your Pips, go out and Live.
Luke.
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Cost is free through Velocity actually, I mean you can select X-Trader and pay pretty similar commission as what you would expect elsewhere (ie: Mirus), and get X-Trader free.
If you do more than 500-600 round turns a month, you can save money by buying an X-Trader subscription.
Global Futures, clearing thru RCG, provide the lowest commission I ever see for trading with X-Trader, that costs from $650 month for one exchange, and the commission all comprensive for ES are $2.32 round turn and for 6E $ 3.22 r/t, and now they give …
I think you will find the price servers on Zen/Rithmic use UDP while TT (and CQG) use TCP/IP. Order servers use TCP/IP. By its nature TCP/IP would impose a delay based on your distance from the price server and your bandwidth... but have more complete data.
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There are two seperate servers on almost all trading platforms AFAIK, price and order. The prices you see on TT/CQG are arriving over a TCP/IP connection, meaning an ack is required from your computer. On Zen/Rithmic, it is UDP so no ack is required and packets may be dropped... but it will be "faster". There are some creative people using UDP with a type of FEC to make it more robust, but that is higher end stuff.
Order servers are all TCP/IP, including Zen/Rithmic.
I'm talking slightly beyond my depth here so if anyone thinks I've got it wrong please let me know.
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I checked on this one to see how it might effect me, and since NYMEX is under CME server, I could have both the ES and CL dom's up same time in X-Trader. I trade CL 90% of the time and haven't traded anything but CL or ES in over a year, so it works fine for me.
I'm considering switching to Velocity because I would like to use X-Trader instead of NT DOM. I already use MultiCharts for charts and backtesting, and MultiCharts has the TT FIX adapter, and Dale confirmed I could do both MC+TT FIX and X-Trader simultaneously.
I contacted Dale Box @ Velocity Futures (dbox /at/ velocityfutures.com) and he has been very helpful. Thanks to George for the referral of his rep. Dale has given me a very competitive quote on commissions, matched my margins, and I like the idea that Velocity is an FCM whereas Mirus is an IB. But I also really like the customer portal at Velocity, this is a sore spot for me with my Mirus statements.
So I've not decided yet and not a decision to take lightly, but so far so good and I may be switching from Mirus to Velocity. Also I know most users here are NT users, and if you use NinjaTrader then really you should have Zen Fire, it is simply the best for NinjaTrader users. Kinetick might change that over time But for me, I don't use NT for any charting, backtesting or anything other than the DOM, and because of this I think X-Trader makes more sense for me. We will see
Recently pulled some money out of my account at Velocity by wire transfer. Request was processed next biz day as promised, funds received. All my interactions with them have been positive.
Free version of X Trader has been a very reliable execution platform.
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Not sure if this has been covered here or elsewhere, but there is an easy way to get ZF connection to trade a TT account on the same computer.
Open two accounts, one with NT/ZF and another with NT/TT. Connect to ZF first and then to TT. The ZF feed is now powering the TT acount. Open DOM and click on TT account.
Well Velocity does use Trading Technologies on Ninjatrader. Initially when I was looking for a broker I was looking for a Zen-fire version. I demoed the feed on my desktop and TT on my laptop they were both pretty much the same I would have the same indicators on both computers would get the same results.
i frequently lose connection to tt data feed -- so if doing cumulative delta studies like that supplied by market delta -- yr data results likely to differ, other than that they seem ok
Not really, overall satisfied. I did have an issue a few weeks ago which was pretty big in my book, and would help add to all of the conspiracy theories.
I need to create a separate post on it, but long story short: Had a number of orders on one day. Get my statement which showed I made less than expected. I eventually find that they duplicated two of my trades, and both happen to be losers. What is more strange is I had winning trades in between these losing trades, which of course were not duplicated! - So, I call that evening, no one answers any phone numbers at Mirus or Dorman, or my rep, or e-mail, etc. I get a hold of someone the next day finally who gives me attitude and acts like I am stupid for asking how this could happen. He says something along the lines of "It is not a perfect system; it happens, etc." He said the trades appear to have "been duped at Nymex". I have yet to 'beat them up' more, but feel that I am due a better explanation on how this could happen. I would bet you $1MIL that if the trades that were duplicated were winners, it would have been caught and corrected without me even knowing about it. Don't tell me they don't have systems in place to automatically correct this type of thing without me having to find it and notify them.
So, I had to find the errors myself, notify them, and get attitude from them about it. In the end they backed the trades out and corrected it, but I shouldn't have to worry about this kind of stuff happening.
Anyone heard of this type of thing happening with any broker before?
Gary
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i hear ninja is having problems with zen and TT feed recently... its all over their forums. It may be affecting version 6.5 as well, but i haven't verified this. I don't have problems with X-trader, so their TT feed is fine.
I don't really use ninja anymore, but i run it to "capture" bid/ask data untill ninja works out all its kinks, and maybe ill switch back. In the meantime, im using other software to trade and for charting.
I still do have to note that i think velocity is much better than mirus because of their reporting tools, and im actually warming to more to X-trader now.
Thank you for the information. The problem I am describing happened weeks ago, and I am using NT 6.5.X with Zen currently. I also have an IB account for backup.
The problem was not at all related to software or data feed, but instead an error on the Nymex side according to Mirus. Ninja showed everything correctly in the logs, trades tab, executions, etc, and I knew what ATM strategy I was using so it wasn't terribly difficult to find the 2 'errors'. They showed 2x the number of contracts being traded on both the 'error' trades.
A very effective way to handle a situation like this would be to talk to someone higher in the hierarchy. If they give you an attitude. (Tell them about your experience with that guy as well). Then it means that the whole organization is infected! Try to find out who you could speak to and approach them instead!
And if it so, (them being infected) please let us know as well!
We all struggle to make tomorrow look like yesterday!
Get rid of your past and let the future unfold from the now. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
/George
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If you end up demoing the X_trader DOM platform before you decide to switch to velocity just note that the live DOM is MUCH faster at least it is on my end. I have used cqg through velocity too and the X_trader DOM is just nuts. I am also using a free version of Ninja for charts connected to a tt_sim server and am doing fine with it... I compared volume delta in my ninja setup to a zenfire/market delta volume delta and they were different.. Not by much but they were.. By the way anyone know who max is on the scoreboard?!?!
Following up, I've been trading futures over 10 years. I started out as a S.O.E.S. bandit. I've used many platforms and brokers over the years. I dumped NT years ago for all of the reasons I've found listed here. When I switched to Velocity, i decided to give them another shot. I currently use Market Delta for charting and the NT-TT combo dom for order entry. I also like to adjust my targets on the NT chart. I happy to say things are working well for me. I'm not that concerned about a second or two. Perhaps I should be but I'm more relaxed and plan my entries better than I did in the beginning. I may call and inquire about using X=trader for a better rate at some point. Velocity is top-notch- no BS. you will be very happy as a customer. Thanks Big Mike for the forum.
ride -0n
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I am looking at Velocity as an alternative to Mirus after experiencing less than professional conduct from them. The issue is my account is being depleted slowly by at least 10-40/week, regardless whether trades executed or not. The Account Manager throws all BS reasons such Euro/US exchange rates due to fact I hold some Euros in the account. Worked for him until the Euro gained value but my account STILL kept falling. He fails to answer any direct questions and continuously spins his crap. Note I have had no issues with Mirus until this year. Something must have gone wrong in that place. Good idea, will talk to someone senior later tomorrow. BTW, any communication with DORMAN keeps redirected to Mirus! Do your due diligence and not just rely on the past performance of these brokers.
Anyway, as I said, looking into Velocity and hopefully find honesty and integrity with them. Question for Velocity clients using NT - what data feeds is available, I can't seem to read this info from their site.
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@kashter, Velocity uses the TradingTechnologies (TT) adapter, it's called TT_FIX (financial information exchange). You should definitely do a trial and make sure it works for your situation, if I recall correctly TT does not have historical backfill.
My rep at Velocity has been great so I would recommend him, Dale Box (dbox /at/ velocityfutures.com). He should be able to answer questions about exchange rates as well as historical backfill on TT via Ninja, and set you up with a two week trial.
I read this thread, but don't see much about the reliability of the velocity data feed. I use IB now, which everyone knows has a crappy data feed, but at the very least it's reliable. I have only lost the feed once during trading in 8 months, which was at the same time zenfire had their big problems, but IB only went out for about 2 seconds and came right back on. I have had about half a dozen processing errors though where my orders were not transacted correctly for various unknown reasons. So I opened a mirus/zen account about 6 weeks ago and was running the demo to verify the reliability of the connection. Conservatively, throughout the 6 weeks it's gone out at least 20 times during trading and numerous other times after hours. At this point I have no intention of trading live through mirus/zen and am now considering velocity.
How often does the connection go out due to "technical problems"?
When and how long do they shut down for scheduled maintenance?
Anyone ever had any problems with their orders not transacting correctly?
Does multicharts offer historical tick data to any degree to backfill missing data? Is it seamless or a PIA?
The following applies to Ninja Trader 7 with a Trading Technologies (TT) data feed.
Currently I am testing, for near a month, a demo of NT7 with TT data feed via another broker (ATC brokers). It is the same setup as Velocity except that Velocity, I believe, has it own servers with TT. The setup runs from about 6:00 am til just about 6:00 pm.
1) Technical issues during the day: none that could be attributed to the data feed. I had a couple of NT 7 freezes but they were due to overloading charts with too many days of data and indicators and forcing changes before processing was completed. Besides NT 7 is still in beta.
2) Maintenance issues: I do not know but I have noticed that TT disconnects at around 5: 00 pm (plus minus 30 min) every day and reconnects several minutes later.
3) Orders issues: In the demo mode none but I do not use complex order setups and I trade through the charts.
The only issue I have with Velocity is that I have requested a NT demo about a week ago and I have not received a reply except for proforma emails.
TT has a pretty good reputation but regardless problems do and will occur. The question is how good is the telephone service when an emergency occurs and you need to get out of a live trade. Any comments on that matter?
Carlos
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Thanks everyone for the responses. It sounds reliable.
I try to leave my computer running to capture tick data from IB, but I run replays every night and with ninja and I have to disconnect to do that and/or I get cut off by IB and am not there to log back in. With multicharts can I stay connected and still run the replays? Also, if I import tick data into multicharts from zen can I run replays on that data, or is it a different data set? With ninja, I download replay data but I can't see it on the live charts, I guess it's a different data set? Thanks for any help.
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I should clarify this a small bit. With MultiCharts, you can power any chart from any data source. You can have one chart of CL uses Zen Fire, another chart of CL using IQFeed, another chart of CL using TradingTechnologies, whatever you want. You can even build a chart from two datasources, one historical and one live.
So when you do a 'market replay' in MultiCharts, it is simply playing your charts forward bar by bar and whatever data source you have selected to power the chart, will in turn power the replay. That also means a replay could play back IQfeed, Zen Fire, and TT all simultaneously.
I'd also like to mention that with MultiCharts replay is just one click away. No disconnect, reconnect, reload, etc etc. One click, just pick the date/time from a calendar. Done. Back to live? No problem, done. One click.
Thank you BM for your off topic comment. I was not aware of MultiCharts multi-functionability. Combined with data from Tickdata my quest for for Market Replay of historical tick data have been fully met.
See this other thread for a comparison of all the top data feeds:"
The link you provide there is only for the "Elite Traders" and I am just starting out with your excellent site and am 2 days into a demo with Multicharts. I have IB and would like to get a good data source. Can you recommend where to look?
I also have a TradeStation, and ThinkorSwim account, and am considering going to Velocity trading.
Thanks again for the excellent site and information.
IB tick data will still be crap... invest some funds (~$1200/yr depending on what you pick) on IQFeed and get your CME fees waived by opening an account with another broker that supports NT, etc... you can always chart off IQFeed with MD/NT/MC/TS and trade off IB with ButtonTrader/BracketTrader/NT7 ... I have been looking at their booktrader lately... but I personally prefer ButtonTrader if doing IB...
the Velocity Portal was one of the reasons for which I switched my accounts from Dormant/Mirus over to them... their only issue is funds are only by wire in or out, but one gets used to that... I love their leaderboard... nothing like being able to compare how you are doing against others... specially since trading is a rather solitary thing.. I personally have separate accounts for discretionary and strategy trading, so I was not too worry about two platforms sending in orders at the same time or anything like that...
I asked this question long ago about velocity traders.unfortunately,they do not accept accounts from canada.About the plat forms,all have free platforms but ninja is never free for live trading.We need to buy it paying1200$$$ for life time licence or can lease for 50$$a month.I m thinking to open a new account by
OPTIMUS TRADING GROUP..commission is 4$ round(E MINIS) and no data fee.Look like good.Any body have any experience with them?Thanks in advance for Any feed back.I Have account with IB ( INTERACTIVE) but can not use ninja live.the current version of IB is not the one we can use with ninja for live trading and previous version
have not gaurenty for the performance.
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if you have IB, look at ButtonTrader or BracketTrader... and for charting you are better off spending the $1400 with Multicharts... IMO...
I dont know about optimus, other than today when I was browsing the forum from my iphone I noticed an add from them on the site..
usually when I dont know anything about the IB or find it hard to get honest feedback.. I look at the FCM for whom they introduce.. in this case Vision Financial... which is well capitalized when compared to similar size piers... and they have significant customer funds which is also one of my criterias.... see attached comparison.. I included others that I believe might open the account for you being from canada, and the one you have now..
Thanks for your reply.Im using ninja since long time and hard for me to switch for an other charting software.
i did check button and other platforms.in fact i did use Tsim plus for live trades with ib.In my opinion,one plat
form,with dom and charts is better than u have 2 or three for different matters.SPecially,if some one want to use a STRATEGY.NINJA has good features for testing and or using a Strategy.
I have to disagree with some of the statements... I rather have separate platforms for order entry and charting.. well, not really... I rather have separate computer overall for Order Entry from Charting... which ends up being at times a separate platform..
I gave up on trying to have both things integrated since every single platform out there, when making any changes to the charting setup will freeze your dom.. NT7 is not exempt of that at all, actually it accentuates the issue..
I do like the Nt7 ATM and DOM as well, which is why I actually own the license for what I think and have found to be a rather unstable piece of software... but what I hate about it is that I cant use it with IB at all since functionality breaks quite often.. so I say Nt7 is great for ZenFire/Rithmic and for TT to some extent... I have not tried MBT or anything else, besides IB... so as long as you stick to ZenFire/Rithmic, no need to do anything else.. if you happen to have multiple FCM's to hedge or trade different markets, or because you want a separate feed or have different purposes for your account (in other words, for whatever reason) then as long as ZenFire on both you are still fine with Nt7...
in any event, I dont use BT for charting, though I love their inverted charts with fx futures for jpy. I used it for replacing IB's Order Entry... and it was excelllent, but costly, at it.. the developer keeps up with IB API and heck, knows about it as much as the IB's own developers.. so unlike NT, he fixes any issues immediately and tests the releases throughly...
I am just about complete with setting up my new account at Velocity Futures. I have a live license of NinjaTrader and have the Trading Technologies feed connected. As I have been comparing the data feeds with my TT Trader charts with my account at ETRADE, I have noticed some pauses in the data flow on the NinjaTrader charts. I have decided to open up my account at Velocity Futures in large measure due to reviews and recommendations on this site. Is anyone having trouble with data pauses, especially during heavy volume times who is using NinjaTrader with their account at Velocity Futures? My trading style is mostly scalping on futures so pauses are obviously not desirable.
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I scalp as well.. have not had issues.. but my I dont chart with NT7... only use the DOM and nothing else.. my chart feed is IQFeed... try the following.. get pingplotter (there is afree version) and enter the IP for ORDER/PRICE and just keep it running.. capture history and it will tell you if your latency increases when the issue takes place.. so if there are issues you will certainly see it, increase your sampling size and have it test every 1sec... oh, you wont be really able to ping the target if you are using Velocity.. but you will get to the gateway.. 157.130.111.126 which is what you want to ping..
I got disconnected 3 or 4 times today very briefly earlier this morning. They said some users were having trouble logging into the FIX. After they restarted it on their end, I did not have another issue.
this is the part I truly love about velocity..the leaderboard... it allows you to measure up against others and see what with discipline and a plan you can make happen as well... at least is what I use to measure myself against.. this is just a snapshot as of this morning... I always track DOW and MAX... they are always competing with each other...
I have been less than impressed with the reliability of the data feed, not as bad as zen, but get disconnected too often. I really don't understand why the futures only feeds have so many problems. I don't ever remember losing my TDA feed and IB feed has gone out only twice that I know of. Maybe because they are small?
yep, net comms... however, the trade vol is made up.. randomly generated by the leaderboard... so other than 0, which means the trader has been carrying the position overnight and for a long time, one has to figure out the # of cars by the average GL per car.. in other words, not hard to figure out the account size and number of cars trading.. here is the latest one... as I said, it makes you want to focus, learn and be disciplined, to compete with them...
have not had issues.. but I am not on 100% of the time... I would suggest you monitor your network connection/routes... that is sometimes the reason.. I know my cable at home goes nuts and I have issues... when I trade from the office, I never have issues (but we have pairs of DS3's going to the internet) ... I have DSL backup as well, but it is used in case of true failure, not hiccups..
if one competes with one self, how does one know he/she is pushing the limits of his/her capabilities? how else to know if you lost money when everyone else made money, to then determine what did you do wrong, where there were failures, etc... by competing with others that you know have achieved success, you can push yourself a lot harder than by setting weekly goals to outdo yourself, and you can see if mistakes were made when otherwise you would have thought you made none... just my opinion..
Actually, in a zero sum market you are directly competing with other traders. Your gains come from their losses, and vice-versa. So in a very real sense, those guys at the top of the leaderboard are making the market more difficult for you, just as every new losing trader entering the market it easier for everyone else. That's why it's harder to trade in low volume choppy times - because the large crowd of losing traders is absent, and it's really the pro scalpers competing against each other. In a high volume environment, lots of losers are present and so the market becomes easier for those who know what they are doing, because the level of competition is much lower.
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I guess I look at it a little different. I have an amount that when attained each day means life is good. Do I want to make more? Sure. Do I always make my target? No. The problem is that it will not help me achieve my daily goal at all by competing with someone else (of course it could help someone else). In fact it might make it worse by putting pressure on yourself. Instead, I use my goals to monitor how I am doing.
I know of a great trader (who shall remain nameless), has a blog, runs classes, brags about how great he is, blah blah blah. He does not need more money, but he has a miserable life because he puts way too much pressure on himself, and he pays the price physically as well due to the pressure. I would even go so far as say he is a trade addict (literally). He thrives on the competition, but I would never want that life.
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Well, I never meant to say that you should live life like a person addicted to competition... simply that you are in direct competition with other traders every time you put on a trade, whether you consider it to be competition or not. The markets literally are a poker game, especially the futures markets where gains and losses are matched up every day.
It works exactly like a game of Texas Hold'Em... the winners are taking in exactly what the losers are losing, minus the rake taken by the house (in this case, that is the commissions charged by your broker and the exchange). And just like in a game of poker, players bluff and pull tricks to try to take each others money.
Pro traders are a lot better at it, which is why when the losers exit the game for a while, the markets become whippy and choppy - that is experienced poker hands trying to outwit one another. When losers come back in during a high volume trend, the pros lick their chops and clean up, exactly like pro players will prey on a bunch of fish at a poker table who don't know what they are doing.
What makes this particularly easy in trading, is that about 95% of people who participate in the market don't even realize that they are involved in a poker game, and don't understand the basic principles of why and how the market moves. They are trying to treat it like it's some kind of mathematical equation to be solved, which is why they ultimately fail... because that's not what the market is.
Nobody would enter a poker game and say "I don't care how other people do, I just want to do well", because in a poker game it is understood that your gains will come from other people's losses, and that you are in competition with the other people at the table. The markets are exactly the same thing... although I do agree with your general statement that one should lead a balanced life and not get too obsessed as your friend is. Just never forget that you are in direct competition with other traders, whether you want to be or not, because that is the nature of the game.
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sounds like a lot of traders out there... and yes, the guys who are great traders end up getting addicted to it because of the competition factor, and the desire to succeed and the drive to accomplish their goal..
from my side... when I mean compete, I dont mean I go toe to toe... I am not there at all... but rather compete in the sense of pushing myself harder to achieve my goals/daily targets or surpass them...
1) I dont have a $1MM account, my account is greater than average as I am well capitalized, but not what I call large...
2) I dont have the expertise in futures trading that I bet the two of them have, but the point is that I would love to get there..
3) my daily goal is $50 per car, I would sure love to make my IT salary in a single day (but did I mentioned that my acccount size is not $1MM? )
So I compete with them, in terms of pushing myself to be better, learn more, apply myself more, etc. I read a thread about prop-trading the other day that was excellent.. which forced me to re-evaluate my trading overall and look at areas to improve it. Discipline was one of those areas. I dont know DOW & MAX, but I attempt to guess some of their characteristics that made them successful, and based on monitoring their P&L I can tell they are very discipline when they are losing, and they have lost .. trust me... and that they average in their winners... there is always a lot of mention of those two characteristics @ futures.io (formerly BMT), but this is seeing it in practice which helps me..
to get back on topic... only thing I hate about Velocity, and every other FCM out there with the exception of TOS(Penson), is the inability to ACH funds at will (in or out) ... only Wire or Checks... that is the most annoying thing I have seen.. IMO.
it normally only shows the top 70 or so... today, those top 70 made $$$... other times they dont and so it shows the losers as well... there are 537 traders that have opted-in showing their P&L on the leader board... not all are winners.. I will post another pic tomorrow to see if it documents the losers, but yes.. it normally shows it.
I've moved back to them. Those scary guys at Mirus don't like to treat people nice. At Velocity, they show you that they care for you. They help you out and they take their time to do so.
I couldn't get my TT to work. The guardian was showing red. So I called Velocity. They tried to help me on their own. We couldn't make it work, so they called TT, and I got support through Velocity by TT directly (like a conference call).
That's what I call service. Not like those Mirus guys, that charged me 50$ for messing up with my wire, making me wait for 23 days in order to get back my money with a lack of 20$ and with nothing solved at all.
So Velocity rocks!
Oh one more thing that's worth mentioning. I called them in order to make sure that they have the right bank information. I couldn't really get my answers from that person I spoke with, so I asked to speak with someone else. And 5 seconds later, a guy that speaks Swedish shows up on the line.
So every Swedish guy around here, have that in mind. I know everybody on this forum (that's from outside North America masters English) but it is still nice to speak to someone in your own language!
So Velocity a big, big 10+!
We all struggle to make tomorrow look like yesterday!
Get rid of your past and let the future unfold from the now. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
/George
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I'm not losing my connection but the data feed keeps cutting out and my charts stop updating. I wake up in the morning and my charts are wrong. Is anyone else having this problem? Thanks.
Why don't you guys contact Velocity and see what they have to say about it.
We all struggle to make tomorrow look like yesterday!
Get rid of your past and let the future unfold from the now. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
/George
The following user says Thank You to George for this post:
This morning at 10.00am CET I got disconnected while I was in a DAX trade on the TradingTechnologies datafeed from Velocity, yesterday that happened also in the morning session around the same time.
I only had to reconnect and all was fine,
???
I did not had that with Zenfire. It seems to be TT is doing that like every day ?
I don't recognize what you're describing. You might want to check it out on your end, and also contact Velocity!
We all struggle to make tomorrow look like yesterday!
Get rid of your past and let the future unfold from the now. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
/George
The following user says Thank You to George for this post:
So I installed Sierra Charts and I am getting backfill on symbols I have never opened before when connected to Velocity, but I don't get any backfill on NT. Does anyone else get backfill from Velocity on NT? Thanks.
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Custom solution
Trading: Futures & Crypto
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Your using TT FIX presumably? There is no backfill with TT, to my knowledge. So perhaps the backfill is coming from Sierra directly? Much like Ninja backfills for Zen Fire?
The guys anwering the phone were nice. But the TT system the way they used it sucked. It had a tendency to forget it was carring an overnight postion. It would not show up on the ninja dom the next day. Tricky and of course it became my finanical mess. There is a reason they are no longer on ninja's reg. list.
Something I don't understand is that if you pay yourself for X-trader or you pay for yourself for Ninjatrader the comissions are higher for Ninjatrader than for trading withX-trader.
why is that ? I mean, you pay in both cases for the software, that is no cost to Velocity, why is ninjatrader more expensive ?
ride -0n
