NT has what I am looking for and I am familiar with it, so if they have fixed all of the reliability problems (hard to believe after using 6.5), I'm willing to try it again.

I only had crashes with NT7, when I did some naughty things. It is absolutely stable during normal trading conditions.

I have not tried out many different brokers, and further more I am trading from Europe through an access point in Switzerland. For your purposes you should ask somebody else.

Evidently you are very skeptical...Why not just download the software, request a data trial from one of our supporting brokers and run it for as long as you need to assuage your reliability concerns? It will only cost you time.

I admit I am skeptical, due to previous experience with 6.5. I plan to do just that, and hope to be assuaged. Would like to learn a little more about the differences between the various brokers/feeds options first. Any recommendations for my purposes?

NinjaTrader is supported by thousands of brokers worlwide. A good place to start is on our brokers page which list some of our preferred relationships.

NinjaTrader stock, futures and forex charting software and online trading platform. [AUTOLINK]NinjaTrader[/AUTOLINK] Partners.

Thanks for the link. I hope not to have to try thousands of brokers, that's why I ask for suggestions from folks who have experience with multiple feeds/brokers and can compare/recommend. I am in NY, and daytrading CL on NYMEX, interested in the fastest, most reliable feed/broker for that on NT7, with good commissions/service/integrity, and through an FCM that is solid, in light of the recent MF Global and PFG scandals.

Check the Brokers section on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT), you will see patterns.

Brokers and Data Feeds - Big Mike's Trading Forum

Mike

I only had crashes with NT7, when I did some naughty things. It is absolutely stable during normal trading conditions.

I recommend you look at Multicharts 8 .net version. For discretionary trading it is superior to NT. I don't do auto trading so I can't comment on that aspect.

Also important is the fact Multicharts regularly releases new versions with features and has a public project management website where you can see all the new features are being considered and submit feature requests of your own. You can see the platform evolving and changing in response to user feedback.

This is a marked contrast to how Ninjatrader deals with software updates, new versions and user feedback. With NT you will wait 2-3 years between releases with almost zero updates in between. They might have a really good reason for doing it like that but no one knows because they don't talk to their customers apart from generic cut & paste replies. Very poor communication with users and keeping them in the loop about what changes are coming and how the platform will evolve.

Like Fattails said above the biggest investment you will make is your time.