I am new to the forum. I am trying to use this study but this is what I get. What am I doing wrong? I have sierrachart package 2,3,4. Do you think this is the problem. Must I have package 5? Any who, here is the snapshot--
I am trying to use this YM chart but I am having some difficulties. Please check post#107. Big Mike was kind enough to post the snapshot for me because I don't have 5 posts yet. I'd like to use that chart for ES as well I tried but not much luck. Help is appreciated.
That did the trick in terms of getting the information but still height of the boxes come out squished on YM chart. Es chart is a mess with YM measures.
Lolu, this is a belated response, but Ninja's "median" is the HL Avg, and their "typical" is the HLC Avg, both of which Sierra offers in their Input Data dropdown.
Well there is always hope, because at least there are two SC users here. Others i think,haven't found out about the advantage of VAP and TPO charts with SC yet.
a "Quote Sheet" is possible in Sierra:
you can use a sample quote sheet:
1.) in the menu go to File --> Open Workbook
2.) to add a new symbol type "#" sign followed by the symbol
I haven't found out how to link a workbook to a chart. But changing the chart is easily done by typing the symbol name in the chart window.
When you select any cell along a quote line on a Worksheet, then you can go to Worksheet >> Open Historical or Intraday Chart on the menu and the symbol for the quote line will be opened as a Historical or an Intraday Chart respectfully, or be activated if the chart is already open. You can also right click on any cell along a quote line to access these commands.
Sierra has added support for ZenFire and Rithmic, and according to an email they sent me, the latest pre-release code should be released this Friday (12/3). I plan on testing this platform out, as it looks very interesting to me.
Not yet, only used for charting, I tried in sim mode, maybe now with Rithmic/Zen-Fire I will try also live, but I have to tell that I like more NT for ordering, maybe cos I'm not used with SC.
I have been talking to Anthony from Sierra and it's "any day now" for the Rithmic feed.
Between us on futures.io (formerly BMT) (the whole 10K Plus) , Rithmic told me they are testing on the new SC version.
If all works well, they will release it. Safe to assume we will see it in the new year.
M
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Thanks Cory, I was going to mention that also, as it was on my checklist of things to look at. In reality though, second based timestamps are fine as long as you maintain the order of the ticks (including bid/ask). It is going to affect your replay slightly because you dont know how to play them back perfectly, but it will be close enough. The other major feature that this could affect is doing bid/ask studies correctly if you dont store your data correctly. They claim to have cumulative delta studies, but I have not looked at it further than looking thru the doc so far.
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I know about 10 traders trying to use SC for BID/ASK differential work and all on occasion get improper CD plots (with DTN data....so data was not the problem). Keep testing over a 30 day period and then compare results.
OEC will never work.....another broker supplied data feed that does not use "ticker plants" to handle their data runs. DTN feed it the feed to use for any and all BID/ASK differential work to ALWAYS have proper CD readings (for ladder, CD candlesticks, etc). The quest to use broker supplied data feeds for proper BID/ASK differential work is a dead end road (with a cliff at the end....LOL!!!).
Anyway, i'm not a programmer, and as i see almost platforms have the seconds as timestamp resolution, and maybe with a work like the GomRecorder it's possible also with SC to get the subseconds.
Hmmmm, don't know if i really need it, but it is for testing some indicators that actually use the seconds as resolution, to see if there are differences and maybe to improve them.
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@vegasfoster, I know you recently are trying Sierra Charts. I hope you'll share your first impressions and feedback as you go, I'd like to learn more about this platform.
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Just found out from my Velocity Rep (@Dale Box) that Velocity is adding Sierra Chart to their line up and it will be "free" (bundled in commission), like NinjaTrader, X_Trader etc etc.
The commission structure will be up on the website soon but Dale told me it will be a good bit cheaper than NinjaTrader, something around 3.30 R/T on ES.
I can chip in here as I began using Sierra Charts about a month ago when I lost faith in NT's stabilty for my ATS. I don't do discretionary trading, only automated, so my views are based on its ATS and programming characteristics.
Programming learning curve:
Pretty steep even though I have 20+ years as a programmer. To begin with I struggled to understand how to program it. I had no C++ experience and I found the online manuals very difficult to follow. It made developing NinjaScript seem like a walk in the park.
I almost gave up a couple of times, but hung in there as I really didn't want to deal with Easy Language in Multi Charts. I'm now finding using ACSIL pretty straightforward and powerful and like the compiled C++ as everything seems so fast compared to NT and NinjaScript.
Speed and stability
Indicators respond very quickly, charts load fast and the whole app seems rock solid. It also has a low resource requirement and I am coming to trust it for an ATS platform, whereas I was constantly fearful of a chart corruption or lock up with NT.
Market Replay
I initially thought that the market replay was inferior to NT, however I was wrong. You don't need to constantly "record the market" and you don't get the the slow loading of data and that stupid replay start date of 2099 with NT. You just scroll backwards and fine tune replay speed and start position so you can tune your automated trade entries and money management.
Contract Rollovers
I'm not so sure about this aspect of SC as I haven't had to do any rollovers yet. I've watched their videos about how to do it and it looks pretty complex compared to the simplicity of the NT 7 approach.
Support
Fantastic via their forum and they seem very willing to incorporate new suggestions into their next versions. That really is awesome.
Overall
I was beginning to think I had to build my own ATS platform, which I really didn't want to do, however having persevered with SC I realise that I have now found the best platform on which to develop my automated systems. It is also very good value for money.
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I'm still in the testing phase so I'm not trading live with SC yet, but I intend to start with CL.
The system is already trading live and profitably with NT 7 but I want to migrate it to Sierra Charts as I'm not comfortable with using NT7 for ATS, particularly when trading different instruments at the same time where resource utilisation could cause issues.
I have just been looking at it the past week or so, and haven't traded it at all, but as far as features it seems both good and bad.
The good,
1) The core package, which is all most people will need, is only $26 per month. That's less than half of NT and a fourth of Multcharts. Nice if you are on a budget and IMO you get a lot for that money.
2) They have a nice set of instructional videos which makes it easy to get up to speed on using the program.
3) Support has been very good so far, they answer questions on the forum quickly.
4) It uses a tabbed interface and not that floating window crap you get with NT.
5) Replay is integrated and is not a separate connection with separate data.
6) I am able to get historical backfill, including tick data, for IB and Velocity, although I am not sure of the source yet.
7) Although I haven't used it yet, you can create simple indicators, alerts and strategies using an excel based interface, which looks considerably easier for non-programmers to use.
8) It feels very fast compared to NT. Everything loads and is executed quickly.
9) If you like to chart trade, it seems to be significantly better than NT.
a) You can have up to 5 targets.
b) There's a chart dom so you can quickly place limit and stop orders using a single click instead of first having to right click and then scroll down the menu to the item you want.
c) You can see and modify your stops and targets before the order is filled.
d) You can modify stop and target quantities after orders are filled.
e) You can set the scale so the price stays in the middle of the screen, which makes it easy to quickly adjust your stops and targets without having to first shrink the scale down first (not that I would ever move my stops ).
The bad,
1) Dated Windows 98 looking interface.
2) I don't think you can edit the keyboard shortcuts.
3) Only have 1 sim account that I can see, which would be a problem when testing multiple strategies if not also for #4.
4) I haven't come across any type of performance reporting.
5) You can program advanced indicators, alerts and strategies in C++, but they don't have a built in script editor. You have to use the MS Visual C++ Express Edition, so there could be a steep learning curve there, I am not sure yet.
Also, so far it hasn't crashed.
Anyone feel to free to correct me if any of the above info is wrong.
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I am also intrigued by SC (coming from NT). I installed it yesterday and my first impressions are as follows:
- dated interface...man, that's old school..
- creating a new chart by having to open some file was weird...
- great speed in everything from loading charts to applying indicators, etc.
- seems feature-rich just based on some of the nice features that I saw in indicator settings
- probably a very steep learning curve in the development language (it's true that it makes NinjaScript looks like pseudo language). Transitioning all my custom programming from NT to SC would be painful.
Does it support Zen-Fire or Kinetick? I couldn't find a way to connect to these providers?
Thanks!
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When you program a windows program in C++ you have only default style of buttons on your simple interface.
Why is this a problem ? It's blazing fast and stable, I don't care how my buttons/interface looks like from 1998 or 1972, as long as it's working FAST and STABLE when I click on it, and that's what Sierrachart does.
I trade to be profitable, not to smile when I click a button because it's fancy. I really wanted to live with Ninjatrader, really. It didn't worked out, sorry, they messed up. Time for something new, like Sierracharts or Multicharts.
No, there is an inbuilt editor. Analysis -> New/Open Advanced Custom Study File->Select file to edit
However this is nothing like the Intellisense enabled NinjaScript editor and integrated compiler, which gives you useful hints about parameters etc. Instead you have to save the edited file, then use the in built compiler and then you find a coding error so its back to the editor again...
Using MS Visual C++ Express means that you have the integrated editor and compiler and it performs better than the inbuilt Watcom compiler.
Yes, very painful and time consuming. Probably impossible for some of them without delving into some serious C++ functionality. Remember, though, that many indicators for NT use some serious C# functionality.
Just to give you a quick idea about some of the coding diferences between NinjaScript and ACSIL:
To find if last bar was an up bar
NinjaScript:
ACSIL:
To find first bar of session
NinjaScript:
ACSIL:
Print current price to output window:
NinjaScript:
ACSIL:
You can see that ACSIL is very Array based and does not wrap intuitive commands around internal complexity as NinjaScript does, however this is also its strength. It is very fast and robust and that is what you want for an automated trading system.
I have never had SC crash even when I have created some bad programming errors. NT would have buckled at the knees, probably corrupted a workspace or if it had a real headache, corrupted the database for good measure too.
I also think there is a side benefit to the SC programming approach. You need to know what you are doing and that is good. I dread to think how many $millions have been lost by traders bolting together automated systems using the NT strategy wizard, only to watch them get eaten alive in the market.
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@vegasfoster, thanks for sharing! Backfill comes from Sierra's servers according to their feature listing website.
@ibiscmllc, DTN is supported but not Kinetick, Kinetick is only for NT. You can probably contact DTN to upgrade your Kinetick connection to a regular IQfeed connection pretty easily. It also seems that Rithmic support was just added very recently (days), it is unclear if Zen Fire will work or only Rithmic (you would assume both, but couldn't determine this with Google yet). Also backfill is not yet available on Rithmic, but they are working to add it via Sierra's servers.
For the backfill data u can select if u want from the data providers or if from SC backfill (time ago they told me is the same of transact data, not sure now).
Chart trader is not so easy like in NT, even if it has more function.
Ja, graphical interface /rendering is not so good like NT(that is one of the best imho)
There's keyboard shortcuts, but don't know if they are editable.
For more sim accuonts you can run multiple istances of SC at the same time.
There's a lack of simple and good performance/trades analyzer like NT (there are some indis that do some report)
For performance there is a quite resources consuming if u are using long term tick data, also for some indicators ,like renko that to be accurate need to be added to tick chart.
They are waiting for Rithmic side to give them the ok and allow them to use rithmic platform, Zen-Fire will also supported.
Take your Pips, go out and Live.
Luke.
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Not sure what "proper" is, but I have been able to get it to work and it looks like my CD on other platforms. It is kludgy, in that you have to build it up on a 1-tick chart in the background, and then apply it as an overlay on another chart, but it does work (at least for how I use it). I was using the IQ feed, and loaded two weeks of data. The actual values of course are wrong (it is not the actual long/short interest), but the differences seemed to correct which is what you care about. It updates in real time, and loads the same values when I restart the platform.
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What I was saying is any charting that can't process sub-second data will never be able to have a fully cleanCumulative Delta plot (properBID/ASK data READ needs to be done at sub-second level). If SC is able to read bid/ask data at sub-second level connected to DTN.IQ then all should be good to go.....so the question is, does SC have the capability to read data at sub-second level?
If it does now have sub-second capability added then I will start to take a look at testing out SC again (full 30 day test to compare to Inv RT/DTN.IQ).
I've been using Sierra with Velocity's FIX adapter for about 5 months, since Sierra added a TT FIX interface. Velocity did not officially support Sierra then, but would still work with me on any issue. This means you don't have to wait...
-Tom
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Well, the key here is using IQ Feed, which delivers the data pre-parsed with the bid/ask, so the timestamps are not meaningful (IQ uses second timestamps, but is the feed of choice). Everyone is focused on sub-second timestamps because they are trying to use inferior feeds/platforms, and then piece the data back together.
It may not be perfect, but I was merely pointing out that SC is one of the few platforms that can actually pull it off.
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I would like to see an ES chart from 08:30 first tick to 3:15 last tick with Delta and then I can do a quick look and see how SC is doing these days with Cumulative Delta. If anyone can help out there that would be great.....I would LOVE to see another charting platform have Delta on board (and functioning properly).
Sierra now provides a Rithmic (Zen-fire's source) interface, though still in beta.
SierraChart is a full-featured, highly flexible, extremely powerful, continually updated, exceptionally-priced, well-documented, fast-response-supported, very stable platform. I recently switched from NinjaTrader, an unstable memory-leaking resource hog.
The dated interface is not a deal-breaker for me. It's fast, light on resources, and solid. I've never had SC crash in the 5 months I've used it. Every platform has its quirks, but Sierra's pluses far out-balance its minuses, IMHO.
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Here is an example on my screen setups I use, so you non-sierrachart users have an idea. Everything is possible, it's just more clean, fast and to the point. You might call it crisp and neat....and correct.
Also support doesn't say to me : re-install sierracharts, or can't reproduce it, they have some kind of a guy over there working day and night and answering all questions with an ANSWER. Wow. Kudos to Sierracharts. I'm learning their DOM and chart trader so I can use it to the max.
I've just had NinjaTrader 7.0.1000.1 display the dreaded "Failed to execute DB job: StrategyUpdate.Job. A foreign key value cannot be inserted because a primary key value does not exist" error message.
It still does it after a database repair.
I wonder why I'm taking the time and effort to move to Sierra Charts
Yes, but it is not your Father's platform (or actually it is ). Everything about this platform is old school and low level, and it is that way for a reason, namely, performance. Once you work thru things, you understand why it works that way.
I have been very pleasantly surprised so far, but have a lot to look at still.
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That's good and users should definitely go out of their way to support developers like that. I feel the same for MultiCharts. It used to be enough to just be a paying customer and expect/demand a certain level of performance and support, but these days it seems to be no longer the case -- you have to show your support when it is due, because too many companies don't truly understand "give customers what they want".
One really nice feature about SC, is everything is in one directory. It is purposefully designed, so you can grab the entire platform and move it to another PC with ease. No registry crap, just one dir tree that you can grab.
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Mike, I jumped on sierracharts when I was a little bit disappointed in seeing the MC implementation of the dom and the chart trader. Just really basic stuff copied, nothing new, and really not complete at all......I would say to Multicharts: Too little and too late...
Exactly, tell me, why would you want to have it otherwise ?
If you program something, just put it all in one directory, no messy things left and right no voodoo registry etc... Sierracharts got that one right. It seems to be they started coding with some cool rules: 'let's make it stable, fast and clean' .. (they forgot simple though...:-) )
Putting everything is one directory is a pre-Windows thing, but very efficient.
Yeah, they forgot simple, but "in complexity lies flexibility".
Using the full functionality of some things is often a bit arcane, but the trade-off is you can do just about anything if you make the effort to plumb the depths.
I have been going back and forth between NT and SC for the past 4 months, hoping that NT would be my final choice. However, I’m leaning heavily towards SC (and keeping NT as a backup mostly because of the gomi indicators). I don’t like the clunky feel of SC but it has several features that I really like. These factors include:
1. It is rock solid and fast. Never any problems, even the few times I experimented with it over the past 3 years. The person I spoke to at DTN told me that their clients rarely have any complaints associated with SC.
2. It is not cpu- or memory-intensive. With the charts that I use its footprint is about 1/3 that of NT (about 70MB vs. 200MB)
3. It is feature-rich.
4. Support is very responsive
5. Its MP charts have recently been vastly improved and are quite good.
6. Replaying charts does not require any prior recording.
And two other factors that might close the deal for me are:
7. SC just announced support for Rithmic. I want to open an account with Matt at Optimus and I was waiting for this support.
8. For volume analysis, I am aware that SC claims a 1 second resolution. However, when I did a 1-week comparison of SC and MD with both using IQfeed, I was surprised that the numbers were virtually identical. When there were differences, they were often in the single digits and insignificant. During this comparison I looked at the bid/ask volume at each price level as well as delta, mostly during the morning ES session using 5-range bars.
I will be doing further testing but I am beginning to believe that SC is a diamond in the rough.
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Maybe a stupid thing, but in Sierracharts you can actually open an configuration/settings window for a certain chart and KEEP working on the other charts, even opening double/triple configuration windows at the same time.
That is really easy for me, in NT once you open some window to change a setting you have to finish that window before you're able to continue working. Not in sierracharts.
I see alot of people are warming up to this platform.Very glad to hear that. I guess the only complaint that most people have is that its not aesthetically pleasing as other platforms. I do however agree with everyones opinions here. For the price, its an awesome platform that does everything ninja and market delta can do combined.
Metal, I didn't know about the DOM, must be new, and i like the fact that you can get 3.30 rt with velocity.
I think ninja is a little too late. Its losing more and more clients.
Ill have to check out the new feature later on this week, when i have more time.
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, Rithmic told me they are testing on the new SC version. 
).
