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Why do you use Sierra Chart?


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Why do you use Sierra Chart?

 
maskanikali
malmo sweden
 
Posts: 19 since May 2013
Thanks Given: 44
Thanks Received: 6


trepidation View Post
If you open an account with AMP Futures, you can get Sierra Charts Level 3 (missing some orderflow tools) for free ($25/month for full) and if you choose to only look at the top bid/ask with CQG for 1 exchange (CME for example which provides ES/NQ and FX) your monthly data fee would be $2 dollars.. which is pretty much unbeatable.

The reason why I switched from Ninjatrader (I bought the lifetime license) to Sierra Charts is because the support on Ninjatrader is non-existent and advanced tool require you to purchase a license form a third party vendor whereas Sierra Charts basically comes with it all out of the box. It's a pain in the ass to setup, but once you learn their the idiosyncrasies of the platform it's unbeatable in terms of out of the box functionality and performance in my opinion. To simplify the setup process, it's good to start with templates (chartbooks) that others have created and then use that as a foundation to learn the platform... as the default appearance is hideous.

edit:
So it appears that you pay for what you get. Sierracharts was supplementing CQG's data with their own, but moving forward they will cease to do that meaning you'll only get intraday data for the current contract month. You will however get the daily data. Here's the announcement:

https://www.sierrachart.com/SupportBoard.php?ThreadID=58506

Hmmm. NT8 has had freezing issues of late and should you dare critique its performance the support staff there are very quick to blame the client. There was once a thread on their forum highlighting the freezing issue , it became notoriuosly popular and was hurting their sales and was quickly pulled down. I am now considering Sierra Charts.

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 Pley 
Yuma, AZ
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Tradestation, NT8, SC
Broker: Tradestation, AMP, Ninja
Trading: MNQ
Posts: 16 since May 2016
Thanks Given: 6
Thanks Received: 18

From trepidation post "...If you open an account with AMP Futures, you can get Sierra Charts Level 3 (missing some order flow tools) for free ($25/month for full) and if you choose to only look at the top bid/ask with CQG for 1 exchange (CME for example which provides ES/NQ and FX) your monthly data fee would be $2 dollars.. which is pretty much unbeatable."

I am setting up SC. It is my supplement platform for Tradestation of 20 years. I only use SC for replay at this point. But I want to go to use SC for TPO and Volume profile soon. Only on ES NQ micro-market (CME).

I am on trial with level 5 with SC plain historical data from SC. I can open TPO study and but still need to configure it.

1. Anywhere on line has a TPO Chartbook I can download to speed up my configuration in SC?
2. Is the historical data from SC good enough for TPO and Volume profile if real-time is not a requirement.
3. For Real-time: AMP Futures+CQG is $2+exchange fee+ $25 for the level 5 platform fee. Is it the most valuable combination and what is the concern SC less support CQG? What is the next combination of the best value?
4. Any other funded Future account that can reduce the total cost per month using SC?

Thanks in advance.

 
 icelandicstorm 
Richmond + VA/USA
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: NinjaTrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 10 since Jun 2017
Thanks Given: 17
Thanks Received: 5


Hello to fellow members. I've been a long time user of NinjaTrader since probably mid to late 2000's. I recently went back to it after a long break and what was once a great tool for order entry from chart was now very buggy, and delayed experience.

Sierra Charts looks like the best of Amibroker and NinjaTrader rolled into one. Does this sound about right? I own the lifetime license of NinjaTrader but that previous poster is right. Mention something in the forums and the end result is not good. I'm going to evaluate Sierra Chart and Multi Chart. Any advice? Currently trading high volume stocks (almost like futures in 2021).

 
magicTurtle
Bristol + England
 
Posts: 30 since Feb 2021
Thanks Given: 22
Thanks Received: 29


icelandicstorm View Post
Hello to fellow members. I've been a long time user of NinjaTrader since probably mid to late 2000's. I recently went back to it after a long break and what was once a great tool for order entry from chart was now very buggy, and delayed experience.

Sierra Charts looks like the best of Amibroker and NinjaTrader rolled into one. Does this sound about right? I own the lifetime license of NinjaTrader but that previous poster is right. Mention something in the forums and the end result is not good. I'm going to evaluate Sierra Chart and Multi Chart. Any advice? Currently trading high volume stocks (almost like futures in 2021).

I have used perhaps 6-8 platforms (always the sims) in the past few months. I am pretty impressed with Sierra Chart, it's made with C++ 2019, the library of studies (indicators) is BIG, including TPO (with service 5, about 36$ per month) I mean, they have like 20 different order types, the customization and flexibility is impressive (you can have an indicator based on another indicator, like an EMA on Volume, etc), it will inform you how many miliseconds it takes for it to calculate the indicators, and in which order they are calculated.

The downsides:

While C++ is the fastest, more performant, memory managed OOP language that exists, it is terribly hard, a lot harder than C# (NinjaTrader), albeit if I had to chose between Javascript (Tradovate, IBKR, IG) and C++, I'll chose C++ 10/10 times. This only matters to you if you are planing to develop your own trading bots (also called studies). Otherwise, just enjoy the speed and eficiency of memory management without automatic garbage collection.

It's quite hard to use. I had to read like 20 manual pages to connect to the trader account (they don't like rithmic one bit, but they offer cheaper -and they say better- alternatives, like TT fix, CQG, Denali and others)

It's ugly -but eficient, fast and reliable-.

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bobwest's Avatar
 bobwest 
Western Florida
Site Moderator
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Sierra Chart
Trading: ES, YM
Frequency: Several times daily
Duration: Minutes
Posts: 8,162 since Jan 2013
Thanks Given: 57,341
Thanks Received: 26,267


magicTurtle View Post
I have used perhaps 6-8 platforms (always the sims) in the past few months. I am pretty impressed with Sierra Chart, it's made with C++ 2019, the library of studies (indicators) is BIG, including TPO (with service 5, about 36$ per month) I mean, they have like 20 different order types, the customization and flexibility is impressive (you can have an indicator based on another indicator, like an EMA on Volume, etc), it will inform you how many miliseconds it takes for it to calculate the indicators, and in which order they are calculated.

The downsides:

While C++ is the fastest, more performant, memory managed OOP language that exists, it is terribly hard, a lot harder than C# (NinjaTrader), albeit if I had to chose between Javascript (Tradovate, IBKR, IG) and C++, I'll chose C++ 10/10 times. This only matters to you if you are planing to develop your own trading bots (also called studies). Otherwise, just enjoy the speed and eficiency of memory management without automatic garbage collection.

It's quite hard to use. I had to read like 20 manual pages to connect to the trader account (they don't like rithmic one bit, but they offer cheaper -and they say better- alternatives, like TT fix, CQG, Denali and others)

It's ugly -but eficient, fast and reliable-.

Writing the studies is actually pretty easy, once you get used to their basic study design. Mostly you just plug things in where they are supposed to be and call other code they have written. Like everything else in SC, what is hard is reading the docs and piecing the parts together. Other than using C++ to tie it all together, you aren't really doing much else with C++ than you would with any other language. If you know any C-based language, you know almost all you need to know, basically.

As you have noticed, piecing things together is the hardest part of the entire platform. Once you get the hang of things, and once you have banged your head on the documentation for a while, it does come together. But you will bang your head a lot. For some reason, no one there seems to know how to write documentation, no one seems to know or care about how to design web pages, and they apparently have never seen another computer program in action and so they don't know anything about writing an intuitive use interface. (Well, until you get used to it, and then it all gets much more simple, as these things do.)

But it's very powerful and wickedly fast. What they don't have in user hand-holding they make up for in technical accomplishment. (I think they don't even like users, much less want to hold their hands. )

It's worth the effort to get used to it, in my opinion.

Bob.

When one door closes, another opens.
-- Cervantes, Don Quixote
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magicTurtle
Bristol + England
 
Posts: 30 since Feb 2021
Thanks Given: 22
Thanks Received: 29


bobwest View Post
Writing the studies is actually pretty easy, once you get used to their basic study design. Mostly you just plug things in where they are supposed to be and call other code they have written. Like everything else in SC, what is hard is reading the docs and piecing the parts together. Other than using C++ to tie it all together, you aren't really doing much else with C++ than you would with any other language. If you know any C-based language, you know almost all you need to know, basically.

As you have noticed, piecing things together is the hardest part of the entire platform. Once you get the hang of things, and once you have banged your head on the documentation for a while, it does come together. But you will bang your head a lot. For some reason, no one there seems to know how to write documentation, no one seems to know or care about how to design web pages, and they apparently have never seen another computer program in action and so they don't know anything about writing an intuitive use interface. (Well, until you get used to it, and then it all gets much more simple, as these things do.)

But it's very powerful and wickedly fast. What they don't have in user hand-holding they make up for in technical accomplishment. (I think they don't even like users, much less want to hold their hands. )

It's worth the effort to get used to it, in my opinion.

Bob.

Haha, yeah, it seems that they live with the guys that make cppreference and the JTC website. Not really surprising coming from a bunch of cpp AND trading AND math nerds.

I would kinda defend them here with the intuitiveness, complexity/depth and intituiveness are not easy at all to put together, and everything does follow a logic. It's real fun (from a soft. eng. perspective) how they managed to put together such a complex piece of software. But let me update you once I finish reading the next 200 pages on how to open a ticket

On the bright hand side, I absolutelly despise the bloody 3 minutes youtube tutorials (looking at your NT), than most often than not, doesn't really explain anything, and I wasted 3 minutes of my life when it would likely have taken me 30 seconds to read. I would much rather read (albeit perhaps not 600 pages, specially not 600 pages just to understand why the demo acc the broker just sent me won't connect).

I would compare it a bit like linuxes: if you don't have the dedication: you don't deserve it.

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Redatrade
Milan, Italy
 
Posts: 5 since Mar 2021
Thanks Given: 6
Thanks Received: 1

1) How long have you been using Sierra Chart?

Less than 1 month.

2) What are your favorite features of Sierra Chart?

The Market Profile/Volume Profile

3) What are some must-have deal breaker features in Sierra Chart that you could not do without?

This again would be the Market Profile/Volume Profile/Numbers Bars (Footprint) tools.

4) Do you use Sierra Chart in simulation mode only, or do you place live trades with it?

Simulation for now

5) Are you a discretionary trader or an algorithmic trader? How does Sierra Chart help you with this?

Discretionary. Sierra helps by providing excellent charting and tools.

6) How easy/hard was it for you to learn to use Sierra Chart?

Very steep learning curve

7) How do you rate Sierra Chart's customer service/support, assuming you have needed to use it?

They know their stuff

8) Do you believe Sierra Chart is competitively priced?

Yes

 
 
blackgrey45's Avatar
 blackgrey45 
Marco Island, FL
Legendary Market Wizard
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Sierra Chart
Broker: AMP Global
Trading: MCL ES ZN MGC E6
Frequency: Several times daily
Duration: Minutes
Posts: 760 since Jul 2022
Thanks Given: 859
Thanks Received: 904

I use SC for the DOM. I like having all the data on the DOM that SC offers. I also like the time and sales offered by SC.

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Boogiman
Houston USA
 
Posts: 15 since Apr 2023
Thanks Given: 7
Thanks Received: 6


blackgrey45 View Post
I use SC for the DOM. I like having all the data on the DOM that SC offers. I also like the time and sales offered by SC.

Do you have a screenshot of the Dom chart book you use? I'm finding it missing the data that jigsaw provides, I'd like to have a Dom up next to my tradingview charts ...

 
 
blackgrey45's Avatar
 blackgrey45 
Marco Island, FL
Legendary Market Wizard
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Sierra Chart
Broker: AMP Global
Trading: MCL ES ZN MGC E6
Frequency: Several times daily
Duration: Minutes
Posts: 760 since Jul 2022
Thanks Given: 859
Thanks Received: 904



Boogiman View Post
Do you have a screenshot of the Dom chart book you use? I'm finding it missing the data that jigsaw provides, I'd like to have a Dom up next to my tradingview charts ...


This image of my screen shows the DOM on the left. I have read that the Sierra Chart DOM can be adjusted in the settings to match the Jigsaw DOM but I have not tried to do that just yet.

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