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For many reasons.
I find MC much more stable than SC.
The integration of multiple brokers and feeds are far superior on MC than SC. For you to have charts from IQFeed and the DOM from a broker together you need to have 2 instances of SC opened and than import the chart from one instance to the other. Although this works perfectly well on SC, with MC you can trade directly over an IQFeed chart using whatever broker on their list without having to import stuff from one instance to the other.
I find MC more user friendly than SC but as I explained before, if you started to work first with SC and than move to MC you would have the same sentiment, SC would be more user friendly to you than MC.
Please don't miss understand me, everyone that asks me which platforms to choose from, SC will always be part of that list, like MC and IRT.
For those that are looking at a trading platform and volume profile capabilities my first choice will always be towards SC. If the objective is only a chart platform with volume profile capability my first choice will always be IRT. If their main objective is a trading platform than my first choice will always be MC.
You need to work with what is available to you and take advantage of it.
I dream with the day MC offers volume profile capabilities...
If I become half a percent smarter each year, I'll be a genius by the time I die
Yes, I have, and they have. I've only been trying SC for 11 days, and they have fixed many issues that I identified. Not all, as some of them were not important enough to them. But, quite a few, and compared to the 6 or so releases NT has had in the last 1.5 years which have contained zero fixes or implementations of ideas.
I don't know if I or someone else suggested this first, but I suggested adding depth to the order column--before, it was separate. Within 24-48 hours it was done. I have also suggested changes to coloring possibilities and they seem pretty open to this as well though it is not implemented yet. I found a bug which affected the ability to change a DOM color option which was fixed already (or has been fixed and is awaiting release). I found a problem with the quick quantity buttons which was fixed within 48 hours. In general, their response has been positive, though there are still improvements I would like to see (such as the width of the chart trading lines to be variable). I've been bugging them for only less than 2 weeks so I have to give them some time... compare that with NT's 5 levels of DOM depth which they just can't seem to find time to get around to, in many years of being asked to do this.
Yes, for me it's not a big deal, but they currently have a day/evening session option. For an instrument like ES this works fine, but for some such as crude, whose settlement comes hours before trading ends, it would be nice to be able to have more than 2 sessions. However, I like the two-only in the sense that it's easy to say "switch on or off" the evening session.
This is a bit off-topic (since this thread is about "Sierra vs Ninja"), so I'll be brief.
First, I want to clearly state that I have never said and I will never say that Sierre Chart (SC) is superior to MultiCharts (MC) in absolute terms. I think that the comparison is meaningful related to one's needs.
Second, I just talk about "classic" MC. I know nothing about MC .NET.
This being said, I have switched from MC to SC, since:
- I needed robust and built-in market profile, volume profile, delta, footprint, Time & Sales (and more generally the possibility to access easily to bid/ask information and use it in codes).
And I think that, even if I would not use these tools any more, I would keep SC for the following reasons:
- aestheticism of the display of the candlesticks with SC - I have a problem with the display of candlesticks with MC - the bars are sometimes too narrow compared to the space between them - I do not see this problem in any other platform - but do not pay too much attention to it - should be a problem only for me on this planet
- charting capabilities of SC >= to those of MC
- programming possibilities of SC are much better than MC: powerfulness of C++ and nearly full control on the platform and data from code
Once more, this comparison is done according to my needs: discretionary trading + need for specific tools + passion for coding (even if I try to control myself ).
Somebody else could be fond of algo trading and have a completely different opinion. For instance, MC has a solid backtesting module. I know nothing about SC's.
Would like to add a couple more positives for Sierra.
You can perform mass alterations on large database files in SC. For example, I was using an IQFeed data file that had 1402.25 type formatting, and I needed to change it to 140225 to try CTS. Well, it took about 5 minutes, but using a multiplier it was done and worked flawlessly (was about a 1.7GB file). Also, if I want to alter the volume over a certain period in the data, I can do this.
No custom programming required to produce clean-looking lines for yesterday's high, low, and settlement (not last traded), and today's open, a la cleanly like Fat Tails NT version, without having to add daily bar types to a custom indicator. I used built-in studies, and with some help from @tomgilb (who appears to be the sierra spreadsheet master), it was done pretty quickly. Ninja does not have the flexibility to do this without serious quality (aka fat tails) programming ability.
Thank you for clarifying, great points and well explained.
This is the first I've read of stability being mentioned as a negative for SC. Can you please elaborate, does it have stability/reliability issues? This is #1 for me, as I had a terrible past experience with NT6.5 and am still hesitant to NT7 because of it. Any stability/reliability/dependability issues in a trading platform are unacceptable and inexcusable to me.
Why do you say MC if main objective is a trading platform?
Which platform and why, would you suggest for multi timeframe charting with a focus on drawing tools rather than indicators, for discretionary futures trading/execution through DOM and chart trader?
Great job on finding and reporting so many issues in such a short timeframe. I'm not sure if that says SC is a buggy platform, or that you are just a great debugger, lol. Their fix/update/release turnaround is truly impressive though, especially compared to NT's lackluster performance in this area.
Curious, if it were possible to configure it, how would you utilize more than 2 sessions for crude?
Thanks for the comparison. Does MC not have Time & Sales? That seems like an important/simple component to implement in a trading platform/charting solution?
Were you trading/executing with MC as well, and now doing it with SC? How would you compare them in this regard, and how is SC for executing discretionary trades?
I will stop talking about MC here, since it is off-topic.
I have never placed trades with SC except in SIM mode. So I will let other futures.io (formerly BMT) members talk about execution aspects.
