Considering leaving Ninjatrader behind. Alternatives for futures trading? Tradovate?

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I've been with Ninjatrader for many years.
I have a lot of indicators in NT7 that are custom and not easily converted to NT8.

I am very satisfied with NT7 and so far have not needed to change to NT8
I have converted some of my indicators/bar types to NT8 and they work. So So.

I'm still using NT7 for live trading and only using NT8 for 'viewing'.
(I still don't like NT8 as well but I'm a old dog)

I hope NT7 will continue to serve me well and not force me to change to in my opinion a less robust NT8.

Perhaps you should post your setup and see if anyone is willing to 'downgrade' LOL the indicators to NT7.

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Thank you, DavidHP,

It's an option for sure. I don't think I will put my indicators up here, though.

If I decide to stay with Ninjatrader, I'm going to invest in a new trading computer and consider having my current indicators re-written/optimized for NT8 or from scratch for NT7. To be clear, my computer should be good enough as it is, though.

However, another big attraction for me with say Tradovate or similar is the online performance center.

I think it's terrible that if I want to track my net performance accurately I can only do so by downloading PDFs at end of the day and then create my own reports in Excel.

How do you guys feel about that?

With Tradovate everything is updated live online.

Ninjatrader have the Trade Performance tool, but the brokerage told me directly that I can't use it for reliable performance reports. In my experience it's 99% accurate, though, but I only track gross performance there. I could add commissions, but there's other fees as well that's not easily accountable for.

Thank you.

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I would love to hear how users of Ninjatrader handle tracking their net performance or how they feel about the lack of an online performance center.

Or if there's a smarter way to track this performance than I'm already doing (downloading PDFs and typing it in Excel).

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I've been using NT for 8 years or so and many times i found other platforms more fitting to my needs at certain periods. A few I like are: Sierra Charts, Quant Tower for heavy lifting and Tradingview for its simplicity, especially now that it has IB directly connected.

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LaissezFaire

Hello guys,

This is a hard decision to make and I haven't made it yet, but I'm considering leaving Ninjatrader + Ninjatrader Brokerage behind. I own a lifetime license and have several custom indicators, so I do feel invested, but really it's just a sunk cost and shouldn't influence my future that much.

An alternative is that I keep Ninjatrader for charting, but use some other broker + software for trading and trade executions.

Can anyone make any recommendations?

The first on my list is Tradovate which seems to generally get good reviews. I'm a very big fan of their electronic/online performance center. In comparison, with Ninjatrader you need to wait until EOD and download a PDF.

Thanks in advance!

-

I'll add why I consider leaving NT:

1. Slow and unstable and various issues.

For a very long period of time I didn't understand the complaints about Ninjatrader as a platform as it seemed to work great for me 99,5 % of the time.

After updating to NT8 I started having issues. During the covid plunge with high volatility it worked great most of the time, BUT, lately (earlier this year) there's just been too many times where it's either lagging or even freezing.

Right now there's something wrong with my workspace such that it doesn't load properly. It's just loading and loading. I'm not trading actively right now so I didn't yet fix it, but I know the "solution" is to probably un-install completely and re-install NT. I already did this a few times already.

If you complain to NT support about any of this, they will usually say it's because of custom indicators or that you have too many chart windows open. Right. It's probably true that you may never or rarely have issues if all you have open is one naked chart, but what use is that to a trader? If that's all we needed it wouldn't matter what software we used anyway.

2. Slow or no implementation of user requests.

There's a ton of basic stuff that's missing and which should be implemented. Ninjatrader will usually comment that this is now submitted as a request, but NOTHING ever happens. I'm told that Sierra Charts in comparison tends to implement new features FAST. Like in days.

3. Lack of online account management/performance summary

The only way to track your performance (net performance) is by downloading a PDF by end of the day. So, you have to wait for it AND you have to plot this information yourself manually into Excel if you want to track your performance.

This to me feels very dated in 2022. I thought that when NT launched their own brokerage in this modern age they would do something about the dated PDF-system, but no...

In comparison, Tradovate is light years ahead with all this data available online.

@NinjaTrader is like a Formula 1 race car compared to other platforms. High performance has a cost. A lot of maintenance. To continue the analogy, if you are just driving around town and don't need great performance NT8 might not be a good choice. Too costly.

Been using Ninja for many years now, starting with NT6. I've got its maintenance humming at this point. It works perfectly for me with the occasional issue I have to take care of.

Any great tool requires this type of maintenance. A piano. Woodworking tools etc.

My CPU is too slow to keep up with the market during some fast moving times with the data I have displayed and it can freeze NT8 at times, happens maybe three times per year. This machine was purchased in June 2015 and has the Intel i7-5930K processor. Replacing with a new trade machine soon.

From my experience NT8 freezing has everything to do with CPU performance not NT8.

Here watch this video on NT8 "health", as a start to better understanding NT8, from one of the vendors I use for draw objects etc.

Ron

Sent from my iPhone using futures.io

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Mtype

I've been using NT for 8 years or so and many times i found other platforms more fitting to my needs at certain periods. A few I like are: Sierra Charts, Quant Tower for heavy lifting and Tradingview for its simplicity, especially now that it has IB directly connected.

If you found them more fitting - why are you still using NT8?

I do like TradingView myself and am using it a bit, but still consider NT king in terms of charts. It's nice to learn other platforms, though.

Sierra Charts seems like a superior platform in most aspects. Particularly in terms of performance and stability. But it looks like it was created in the late 80s and I'm told there's a big learning curve.

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Blash

@NinjaTrader is like a Formula 1 race car compared to other platforms. High performance has a cost. A lot of maintenance. To continue the analogy, if you are just driving around town and don't need great performance NT8 might not be a good choice. Too costly.

Been using Ninja for many years now, starting with NT6. I've got its maintenance humming at this point. It works perfectly for me with the occasional issue I have to take care of.

Any great tool requires this type of maintenance. A piano. Woodworking tools etc.

My CPU is too slow to keep up with the market during some fast moving times with the data I have displayed and it can freeze NT8 at times, happens maybe three times per year. This machine was purchased in June 2015 and has the Intel i7-5930K processor. Replacing with a new trade machine soon.

From my experience NT8 freezing has everything to do with CPU performance not NT8.

Here watch this video on NT8 "health", as a start to better understanding NT8, from one of the vendors I use for draw objects etc.

Ron

Sent from my iPhone using futures.io

Hi, Ron,

Thank you for your post. And thank you for that video. I learned a long ago to not have auto-connect on start-up, but I always open NT with workspaces. I'll try to close my workspace and open it after starting up NT instead.

Regarding hardware, I do have a good computer, but it's time for buying a new one as it's 6 years old and the battery is toasted.

Would you happen to have any advice on a good trading computer (laptop)?

At this point, I'm leaning towards just staying with NT8 and giving it one more chance. I really love the interface, ease of use and the nice charts. I think a big part of trading is to have familiary with the markets and what you're doing on a daily basis, and I am for sure familiar with NT. So that's a big argument for staying with it.

I loathe the PDF statements and not having an online performance center, though. But what can you do...

Thank you.

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LaissezFaire,

If you are an algorithmic trader, you may want to explore Interactive Brokers-- in particular, the APIs they offer in C#, Java, VB, C++, Python, and Excel.

I haven't experienced any performance issues.

Further, the API offers a level of flexibility that isn't found in broker-based coding languages, when coding indicators or algorithms.

Note: IBAPI has a notoriously steep learning curve.

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I used Ninjatrader and there was no week without crashes.
I experienced at least 2 crashes each week.
Sometimes template disappear.
I have to configure everything from zero again.
Many headache.

I used a lot of tick charts and volume profile.

Then I move to Sierra Chart.
Couldn't be happier..
No crashes unless bad indicator.
And charts load very fast.
Low resource requirement.

You have to spend some time to learn. But after that, it is very easy.

Sent using the futures.io mobile app

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nixontateli

I used Ninjatrader and there was no week without crashes.
I experienced at least 2 crashes each week.
Sometimes template disappear.
I have to configure everything from zero again.
Many headache.

I used a lot of tick charts and volume profile.

Then I move to Sierra Chart.
Couldn't be happier..
No crashes unless bad indicator.
And charts load very fast.
Low resource requirement.

You have to spend some time to learn. But after that, it is very easy.

Sent using the futures.io mobile app

Damn! You shouldn't be making this post just when I have decided to probably give Ninjatrader another chance. LOL. Just kidding.

But sure. Sierra Charts seems to be a superior platform in all aspects.

Ninjatrader seems to be able to work properly if you take a lot of precautions, load it the "right way", don't have too many charts open, have superior hardware, etc.

I may stick with a bit longer as I do like Ninjatrader and am familiar with it and don't want to spend a lot of time learning a new platform, but I am for sure not very happy with all these issues...

Considering leaving Ninjatrader behind. Alternatives for futures trading? Tradovate?

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Considering leaving Ninjatrader behind. Alternatives for futures trading? Tradovate?

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