I just went to the futuresbroker.com site and I did the live chat and I ended up chatting with my Velocity rep! So I told her I was looking for another broker with Bund on sim. She wasn't amused.
so after much searching.. I am now doing X-trader as well... just started this week... the learning curve is not that hard... I was able to trade today without any issues and met my goal in a few minutes.. then just moved on to TTSIM to play and try new things...
I have much to learn about the platform still, but it is faster than NT7!! ... I still like tradevec, but I like the EPIQ with XT... I wish others had thought of it and added it since that is rather useful and it is tracked at the workstation level, so it is estimated at best, but better than wondering where the hell your order is on the queue... oh wait, TT will patent that too and charge 0.15c per transaction (if they have not yet done it that is )
that is very much true... it is my understanding that Advantage Futures has the most robuts TT setup out there available to retail... but their account management features suck... even worst than dorman trading...
I find the ninja dom is slightly faster but I much prefer the "fisher price" look & feel of the x-trader dom. it's bigger and easier to click. the EPIQ is very cool. But I really need the OCO plugin which means paying $650/month. Hopefully my volume will increase to the point where it's cheaper to pay the $650/month fee instead of higher commissions.
Ninja could have really added to the DOM for NT7 but they didn't change much of anything on the DOM. that's too bad.
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If you are with Velocity I am quite certain you can get the OCO plugin for free. Am I wrong? I actually stopped using OCO Trader and the Profit Target manager whatever it was called because I found it easier to just set the targets myself.
that is correct... OCO Trader Limited will apply whatever trade strategy you want to apply... including multi level... and it is included for free.. PS trader has similar functionality, but I see it more of use if you are trying to build a position and want to to do it over time.. like, if you wanted to buy 100 cars on 6E at a price range.. at least that is how I understood it.
MD Trader seems to have an OCO as well, but it is manual... so OCO Trader Ltd is automatic once you drag the instruments you want to trade and activate them... I was able to duplicate most, of the functionality that I had chased with the NT7 ATM, with the exception of of accelerating the trailing stop after X number of ticks.. if it has it, I have not figured it out yet...
I would have liked their time and sales to allow me to aggregate the trades taking place at a given price if at the bid or ask... I would have liked that feature.
Here is the link for the PDF explaining how it works..
I have been getting up early, to build some discipline, and I started to trade at around 8AM EST 6E.. mainly because I believe it to be slow at that time and also because I wanted to continue to play with XTrader... the first 5 trades were all losers... but not because I got it wrong, but rather because I didnt know how to properly use the platform... specially OCO Trader Ltd... did you know that if you launch it more than once, all of them will take effect on your single DOM orders? yep... It drove me crazy and I could not figure out why the trades were not working or happening at odd places... gave up around 9AM since I was late for work.. closed my dom, ignore the messages.. and hopped on the car.
as it turns out, when I got to the office two things happened... I had clicked one time too many or one of the stops was still active when I closed it.. and, I came to find a nice(could have been really bad) surprise when I launched my workspace on XT... I had made a 2K profit.. now imagine if that had been a loss... an order had remained open... and contrary to some opinions, it seems as OCO orders via OCOltd are on the exchange, not your workstation.. not sure how it happened yet.
I was puzzled so I kept trading through out the day on my main market, TF... and I was up and down all day, again, learning a new platform.. but by following my setups and sticking to my plan I "made" money... I dont count the 6E wins... that could have been a loss just as well.. got lucky and trend was down..
anyhow, if you are going to use XT.. learn its limitations... I am yet to figure out how to have a strategy that will move me to BE+1 and then start trailing after x ticks... it will either trail from the start or not, which means you have to manually move your stops and that doesnt really work (it will cancel them instead).. I figure how to do with OCOtraderLtd... but you have to go back and reset it afterwards.. which is a no-no for me if I am interrupted and then forget and get back and enter a trade and get stopped out on 2-3 ticks..
so what can you learn from my "successfull" screw up... LEARN THE PLATFORM BEFORE TRADING WITH REAL CASH... luckily for me, I didnt trade with real cash this morning when I got up or else I would have lost my 3% in the first 30 mins of trading since I kept making errors with the platform.. and possibly even more if that $2K "winner" had been a loser and using real money... I wonder the velocity risk mgmt would have gotten me out of the trade if they saw a 10% loss for the day... hmmm.. who knows... anyhow... I am a bit proud that I was able to focus on the plan I formulated while I was driving to the office, even though there were some sweet shorting opportunities today and I was super tempted to just log out of TTSIM more than once and trade real funds.
so stick to your plan, and learn the platform... or risk losing the account for real... I will assume last week was merely luck as my target is only 4-5 ticks and I won the first trade... so I stopped trading within 5 mins... I am sure I would have had the same issues I did this morning given the first 2-3 were losers... and I kept trading since I had not lossed 3% yet..
with futuresbroker.com, you can only talk to a broker if you need to get out of a position. If you have any other questions, you can't call to talk to anyone. Everything is done through email from then on. So if you need support, it has to be done through chat or email.
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Did your Velocity rep mention why they are 24 cents less if you use futuresbroker.com? Does one seem better than the other, for any reason other than commission?
I will say though every time I've done an online chat with velocity or futuresbroker (same) I've gotten someone within seconds. And oddly enough it's been the same person. Not sure how they do that. If they're not busy or if they only have one person handling requests.
They only publish commission rates for ES and she said it's for traders who trade ES. I'm not sure what the deal is really. It seems a bit suspicious, like a bait & switch or something. I can see if it was a different company and/or employees but the same Velocity rep answered the online chat so this futuresbroker.com website is just a front.
Interesting experience with this OCO stuff. I haven't tried it yet. So far I think the Ninja DOM's ATM is much more intuitive. For fast markets where this is important I'm still using the Ninja DOM. For slow markets where I have more time to analyze the DOM I am using X-Trader. Maybe when I get more comfortable with X I will do everything with X (if I get enough trades it's worth it to pay $650/month and get lower commissions).
depends what you call analytics... and what market or investor/trader segment you are addressing...
in any event.... NT as an analytics platform is unstable, but RC1 has proven a bit more reliable... if userbase is the determination of how good a platform is, then sure.. NT since they give the product away... but I would say, baring not having REDIPlus for your OE and a Bloomberg for all your analytics... your options as retail are MarketDelta, MultiCharts, Tradestation, SierraCharts, NeoTicker, CQGIC, AmiBroker, Tradecision, Esignal, Ensign, MetaStock.. each one has a different user base and are much better foundational analytics platforms given their stability than NT.. ... again, depending on what your definition is... if you want your platform to do algo trading at the same time, or if you care to analyze options at the same time, or if you just want tons of "indicators" from others or create your own custom ones, etc...
To me XTrader is a good order entry platform... I would not use their charts... although I tried..
I think i posted this before.. If you want help, you need to use their online chat tool.... Unless you want to get out of a position, then you can go ahead and call their support desk
if you are serious about XTPro... take a look at this... I used to have PFG when I had a managed account via attain capital.. I have no feelings for them either way, but if you are using XTPro you are using TT anyhow... so might be worth looking into ..
I'm trying to define with OCO an ATM with 3 cars, one that takes profit after 6 ticks, 2 remaining go Breakeven, +1 and the 2nd takes profit after 10 ticks and the 3rd keeps running with a trailing stop of 3 ticks behind and once it's at 15 ticks profit it trails with 2 ticks behind.
Can somebody help me how to define that in the OCO ?? thanks.
I also read that TT datafeed is only providing data once in 100ms ? Is that correct ?
Does anyone know how to change the price display to show the decimal in the correct place?
I'm trying the demo of X_Trader from Velocity and I was able to add a second price column that displayed a custom user defined price column via the MD Properties 'advanced' tab...but now I have two price columns.
All I want to do is get the price to display as 1205.75 instead of 120575
Thanks for the response...but that only decreases the number of digits displayed, it doesn't put the decimal in the correct place. The DOM's display all the digits with no decimals.
all I'm trying to do is get the ES, for example, to display 1208.50 instead of 120850
What about MD advanced tab/enable user-defined price column, and there you have price formatting ? Decimal location ? But it ads an extra column ? You can remove the default one ?
Incorrect on the 100ms updates. The TT feed is unfiltered.
You'll need to use Multiple Levels to do that -
31. The Multiple Levels setup window is used to configure the Multiple Level templates. These templates can then be applied to individual contracts within OCO Trader’s main window using the Multiple Levels checkbox. Multiple Levels places a percentage of each offsetting limit and/or stop orders at the specified tick offset. The order of execution starts with the level with the highest percent allocated to it and sequentially distributes based on which level is furthest from fulfilling its allocation percent. Any ties go to the lower level number.
If you have any questions about our services at Velocity Futures please send me a private message.
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You asked about setting a decimal in the emini. I've talked to tt about this and they showed me how.
In MD Properties / MD Advanced check 'Enable User-Defined Price Column' and set 'Display type' to Decimal. Then, 3/4 down that page, check 'Price formatting' and set your Decimal location to 2 and Max digits to 6. This will convert ESZ0 of 117950 to ESZ0 1179.50.
Also, you can then hide the default price column by putting your mouse pointer at the top of MD Trader and grabbing the right edge of the default price column. then drag the edge to the left.
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Hi. I trade by X_Trader free + VF. OCO plugin is free as well to use some really professional order type like ICE, GTC, GTD, TSM, etc. I agree EPIQ is cool but also to be able to put Iceberg Orders (for example 4 lots shown as 1 in the book) is usefull when trade during some hours of the day, or for a fast exit strategy.
The only problem I have is need to reboot X_Trader Free to change market. Not big issue for me as CME servers cover also NYMEX and some others.
The following 2 users say Thank You to Silence Exp for this post:
You can change market only by reboot X_Trader as free VF licence. When the window login appear I put my username and pwd. Then by the button 'options' (not the login button on left side) I set the market exchange I want. At moment I have CME CBOT EUREX ICE but I can only set once per login. These markets are preset by VF (a part of ICE requested later), and in some case you find also backup servers CME-A EUREX-A etc. (failure and disaster remedial). In my case as CME servers cover NYMEX and COMEX, I have by login in CME all the contracts I usually trade. In some rare case I open on Eurex and CME I use to control the whole position on web-customer-portal.
Syl
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I think VF add Eurex as preset for acc founded in euro. It's only an idea. I am (almost) sure you can ask to add Eurex and Ice w/o problem. At moment I am studing Brent on ICE, as commisions are far lower then CL/CME and volumes are intersting. X_Trader seems to fly on this market but on Eurex I experienced several issues.
Do they split the 4 lots into four 1 lot or they simply just show 1 lot when there are actually 4? If they are just showing a single lot how does it works?
Iceberg is an exclusive type of order well known in the trading rooms. X_Trader send a sequence of 1+1+1+1 until complete (in case of 4). Mybe you have seen when some level book with small size is very resistant and the times&sale shows a lot of order size 1 going at that price. No problem if you trade ES but for CL is very usefull.
Could happen that you have 8 or more cars to exit and you desire MM don't see you
wow i am so happy to find this thread. I've been using TT for a while now (paying full price for TT pro) but I have to say it is very reliable and fast (considering the application, from my understanding, is not optimized for multi threading)
Question: Has anyone used Multicharts (or any other charting software) in connection with TT data. I pay way too much in exchange fee's to TT (via server fees) , and I dont want to pay similar fee's to Esignal or CQG to have reliable, live charting and simple strategies running
I was thinking about using TT data feeds in a chart for current data, and then having a secondary provider (not sure who, esginal, barchart maybe) for delayed/old data. I thought I might be able to do this with Ninja, but using TT and Ninja is not so easy ( i have to set up a dedicated server, and some other stuff)
TT data is great, is just you cant access any historical data via their API, otherwise their software would rock
Eurostoxx .... currently I'm talking with MC to write an API connection to get the data from TT directly through X-trader into MC. I'm connected to the EBS EUREX feed and want to receive real unfiltered data without the "st...." FIX-protocol. Please be aware that any data you see in the X-Trader is "FILTERED" by the broker! The EBS EUREX feed is not ! It has too much problems implemented and is very expansive from may standpoint. So think to invest 5000USD for the API at 1 time is ok. Will coming back in the new year with any updates.
Regards and happy Christmas and a nice year change to all of you.
Hello, you will never get the same quality data feed from TT like you get from DTN/IQFeed or Esignal.
For me that's a business expense. I had some charts with huge gaps and wrong price data and I could not accept that. I rather pay for top notch service like DTN/IQFeed than to know I saved $100 but know that the data is not 100%
I wish it were only an extra $100 a month for esignal or someone else. I play a bunch of futures (CME, CBOT, EUREX, Euronext, LIFFE) and then i have to pay extra fees to trade oil, gold, silver etc on most charting, even though they are on CME, go figure... I am looking closer to 400-500 a month .
I called up my broker, MAN, to find out about using Ninja and TT, and they quoted me a similar price (5K) for a stand alone server to to hook up the two. I didnt really understand all of what they said. But I'm not really interested in paying that much, and then having to use ninja. And i would need to keep TT running all the time, to record data
PS - Gboos' I just realized the TT data is broker filtered. Mann upgraded their Eurex servers, and presto, Eurostoxx looked like S&P... I actually liked the old "chunky" way before, though I am assuming the new servers are faster, so I'll take it
But keep me posted on the MC - TT thing ... it sounds interesting
TT is an excellent data feed and I couldn never say I got a wrong trade for it. My idea to improve the trading station is to separate excution from charting. As I swap completely to a linux system (Fedora) for my productivity, I have 1 win-pc dedicated to X_Trader and X_Study. It's not enough as X_Study mirrors X_Trader DOM. I have good gains but something looks wrong in my trading station.
I would like to chart, planning strategies, computing and money management by linux and just executions by Win. In this case also a netbook with CQG Trader should be excellent. And I could be really sure to work by real separate servers. Linux system give you zero problems on internet connections, it's safe against attacks and rock. However nobody in trading industry dev for linux (nor for mac :-( ). The best choice I found is charting software in java. Barchart and Prorealtime are two vendors I found, but I am really suspicious about performances ... I will test trials next weeks.
But you are wrong. Linux systems give you problems like any other system, maybe a little less. But ZERO ? That is not my experience. I run linux server systems for over 10 years now. Zero problems on internet connections ? Ok, their TCP/IP implementations are good, but Zero ? Safe against attacks ? If you look to certain sites that keep track of how many security holes are discovered per operating system you will notice that like daily there is a hole found in Linux distro's, and daily you have security fixes for linux.
Linux is not unix compliant, MAC OS X is :-)
I'm also a J2EE programmer, JAVA or J2EE code is not slow, badly written JAVA or J2EE code is slow. Just keep that in mind. I would just program certain parts in Assembler if I would program a charting program.
Thanks for your message. I would say that something is changed about IT. Multi OS software should be the goal. I can do all my things on linux pc totally windows free. A part of trading ... I think -it's my personal idea- we are in 2011 and in this age software trading industry is pretty obsolete. Many sw don't run on 64bit, use api 10 years old, sometimes not yet compatible with win7. TT recomanded before X_Trader 7.8.2 to run their sw on winXP ... this until two months ago. TT is a giant.
I USE X_Trader and I am not a linux fundamentalist :-)
... but I don't understand why the dev of trading software is so slow ...
Syl
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TT Release coming by end of January ... Hopefully ;o)
X_TRADER 7.9.0: Orders and Fills Window (OFW)
Position Window
MD Trader order filtering
Autospreader 7.9.0: Improved managing and filtering of spread configurations
Multi leg hedge logic changes
Up to ten Queue Holder orders per leg
Improved logging for Hedge Manager
Allow spread configuration to be displayed while spread is working
Autotrader 7.9.0: Improved logging
RTD available in Autotrader grid
X_Study 7.6.0: Export chart data
Ratio Spreads
Link Historical bar data and TI values
Save as Default
Synchronized cursors
As I heart no API changes are planned so far. Nice.
Mike
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I'm looking into velocity futures with X trader, and had a question about the exchange fees.
If I wanted to trade the CL, Beans, and Russel. Would I have to subscribe to the two exchange version since the Russel is on ICE? Or would it still fall under free?
Pricing
Version Platform Fee Commissions X_TRADER Free (No Platform Fee) E-Mini S&P 500 (ES) CommissionsX_TRADER Subscription (One Exchange)
30 day cancellation period applies. $625.00/month (plus tax) E-Mini S&P 500 (ES) CommissionsX_TRADER Subscription (Two Exchanges)
30 day cancellation period applies. $875.00/month (plus tax) E-Mini S&P 500 (ES) CommissionsX_TRADER Subscription (Three Exchanges)
30 day cancellation period applies. $1,000.00/month (plus tax) E-Mini S&P 500 (ES) CommissionsX_TRADER Subscription (One Exchange) Qualifying Exchange Member
30 day cancellation period applies. $125.00/month (plus tax) E-Mini S&P 500 (ES) CommissionsX_TRADER Subscription (Two Exchanges) Qualifying Exchange Member
30 day cancellation period applies. $375.00/month (plus tax) E-Mini S&P 500 (ES) CommissionsX_TRADER Subscription (Three Exchanges) Qualifying Exchange Member
30 day cancellation period applies. $500.00/month (plus tax) E-Mini S&P 500 (ES) Commissions
X_TRADER® 7.9.0 has been released and includes the following major enhancements:
X_TRADER 7.9.0 introduces two new windows: the Orders and Fills Window (OFW) and a new, separate Position Window.
• The Orders and Fills Window combines functionality from the Order Book, Trade Book, the Fill Pane from the Fill Window, and the X_TRADER Plug-In Fill Recapper into one window allowing you to follow the complete life-cycle of an order.
• The Position Window provides a customizable view of positions, working orders, P&L, and Available Credit.
MD Trader® can display working orders and net position based on Customer Account and/or just your own orders when sharing an order book.
Autotrader™ can accept direct RTD links from X_TRADER, and edit them in a new formula bar.
Autospreader® spread configurations can be managed via a new 'Leg View' tab.
------------
X_STUDY® 7.6.0 includes significant enhancements to existing functionality, including:
Link X_STUDY bar data and historical technical indicators into X_TRADER® and Microsoft® Excel.
Export chart data to a .csv file.
Create two leg ratio spread charts.
Set custom 'Save as default' properties for technical indicators and drawing tools.
Move cursors in synch when charts are grouped.
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I just started a demo of X_Trader and didn´t see in X_Study the possibility to use agregation of ticks / volume. Does anybody know whether this future exists in the real version?
How does X-Trader handle user input? I can get Ninja to hang at will by clicking the buy button 20 times as fast as I can.
I recently saw a webinar about trading for rebates, and I think the guy was using X-Trader. These traders have ultra low commissions, and this is how they enter the market to add volume and liquidity, as the price goes against them, in order to build their position size, at the same time reducing the average price for the position. He would click the 'Buy Bid' button 10+ times very quickly with 100 shares in order to add 1000 shares to a losing position, keeping his average price close to the current market, and as soon as the market move 1 or 2 ticks in his favor, he would get out at break even, to just collect the rebates on the trade from the exchanges.
This kind of entry hangs Ninja for many seconds, sometimes minutes while it seemingly internally queues and executes orders at it's own pace, or something. Meanwhile the chart, and chart trader is totally unresponsive from any further user input. Then by the time NT catches up, the market is 20 points away from where you clicked the button, and you are now getting fills at that price. How does X-Trade handle this?
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Single-click trading without complication has always been a plus for X_Trader; in Ninja they had to use that 'interface' in order to not infringe TT patents. On MD Trader you can have your standard lot at 1 / 5 .. 100 and click continuously a single price level until you've got your quantity or elsewhere in order to manage quickly your average price- What you describe is the standard on TT but I'm not so sure they actually support stocks trading. You may check at https://www.tradingtechnologies.com/productdb/ .
This is not correct: tell them that the user cannot add even a single lot with another click at the same price level without using that dropdown menu: you can't click-click simply in rapid succession.
At least this is what I've checked last time when I've decided not to use NT for order management.
Great thread. I've been trading futures as market maker/trader since 1986. IMHO when volumes and volatility kicks in no other platforms (apart from perhaps Stellar) will come near matching Xtraders reliability on execution.
Hi "mattguin" I see you are trading FX, could you share with us your execution and charting software. I am currently with Dukascopy and not able to access any similar to X-trader or NT DOMs, so I use their proprietary platform JForex which is very clumsy if you are an active trader/ scalper and for charting I have Esignal. Thanks.
"The only thing to do when a man is wrong is to be right by ceasing to be wrong." - Edwin Lefevre -
The following user says Thank You to kashbg for this post:
For spot fx that aren't that many reliable platforms for individual accounts that I know which is one of the reasons I switched to trading fx futures. Best platforms for execution imo; Xtrader, stellar and cgq not too bad. If you want ability to use charting, scripts and execution Ninjatrader ok choice. I use esignal as well for charting and find it very reliable.
For spot fx perhaps best choice is mt4 if anyone else has ideas on this would love to hear.
Cheers
The following user says Thank You to mattguin for this post:
Very helpful posts. I am so glad I found this thread. It seems the best tool for trading execution is X-Trader, give or take a few personal preferences. It is a shame it is not available for Spot-FX. I would like to see similar DOMs in the Spot-FX. I have absolutely no knowledge of Stellar, their web site is not very helpful with snapshots etc. I would appreciate if anyone say a bit more about them.
"The only thing to do when a man is wrong is to be right by ceasing to be wrong." - Edwin Lefevre -
Malvolio do you use Cunningham?
Don't they have 10k minimum account size and no day margins?
Because they are not a Broker/Dealer just a clearing firm?
Thanks
for anyone interested, XTrader over Cellular network wont work as a backup/DR service at all... I have spent now 2 days working with the vendor to see if it could.. and nothing... thus far using TT API will, but it times out quite a lot... using the XTrader app itself, no chance to get it working..
I love Stellar. It's way faster than TT (I was a heavy happy user of TT) in usage, comfort and further issues. I used it for 1 1/2 years. Perfect game. The problem, I moved to automatic execution with Multicharts without API through TT Pro. The Stellar API is not open ;O(.
By the way, is there any possibility to get TT-FIX simulation to make a serious comparison between own order execution development MC(wo/API)-TTPro and MC-TTFix ?
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... I still like tradevec, but I like the EPIQ with XT... I wish others had thought of it and added it since that is rather useful and it is tracked at the workstation level, so it is estimated at best, but better than wondering where the hell your order is on the queue... oh wait, TT will patent that too and charge 0.15c per transaction (if they have not yet done it that is 
