Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: My own custom solution
Trading: Emini Futures
Posts: 49,792 since Jun 2009
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Based on the posts by Sierra Chart, they decided against implementing the new Zen Fire API. The new API is a requirement since the agreement between Rithmic and Zen Fire ends December 31st and was not renewed.
Sierra Chart does not want to implement any API by anyone, they want everyone to use their new API instead. They are not singling Zen Fire out and have admitted as much in their posts.
It is not clear about what they are doing with BigTick. At least not to me. I would only guess they are also not implementing it for the same reasons. This would go for any data feed of any kind going forward, I presume. If it doesn't use their own API format, they will discontinue it. That is my take away at least.
Yes, I just found out. Great Christmass gift for me from SCH and ZenFire. Thank you very much. I am very dissapointed. Mirus was my broker from 2009, but they make it very difficult for me to continue to cooperate with them. First I bought NinjaTrader life license, 2 years ago I started to use Volume Profile which was not natively supported by NT. So altough I got the life time license I am using SierraChart which has it but I pay 25USD/month (something like that) and I bought it for one year last month. Only to find out that they will stop support ZenFire from 1.1.2014. Nice!
To be honest I am not really interested in the finger pointing game at this point. Only thing I know is that I am not able to use my trading setup anymore and therefore I am deciding what to do after 1.1.2014.
I just need to clarify one more thing. After 1.1.2014 I will be not able to use the ZF datafeed. But am I able to trade directly from SCH, when I use Mirus as a broker? Probably not, but can someone clarify please. If this is the case then it doesn´t make any sense for me to use Mirus anymore.
I am deciding between the SCH datafeed which seems to be very similar to ZenFire (meaning very good) and the IQ feed which is littlebit more expensive, but offers also reliable NYSE TICK. The one from SCH sucks. And if I am not able to trade from SCH with Mirus, I will be in a market for a new broker as well.
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Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: My own custom solution
Trading: Emini Futures
Posts: 49,792 since Jun 2009
Thanks: 32,326 given,
97,628
received
Sierra Chart is fully capable of implementing the new API, they just don't want to. On the other side of things, Mirus probably didn't give them a lot of heads up time to do so and I would imagine Sierra didn't like that very much.
If you are a customer of both Sierra and Mirus, my advice would be to complain to both of them equally. If enough people speak up there will be a solution. If insufficient people speak up, then there will not be a solution because Sierra Chart and Mirus make business decisions on where they spend their resources.
On a side note, NinjaTrader implemented the new API already.
BigMike: I got life time license for NT. But they were not able (or not willing to - to be exact) to implement Volume Profile in their software. So I don´t care if they implemented API from ZenFire because I don´t use NT anymore.
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There are actually two APIs (.net which Ninja implemented to and c++). I am sure the .net was implemented first as Ninja likely has many more Mirus/Zen customers. The programming model is hard to deal with, but does fit better with .net for a number of reasons. The c++ API is poor at best, as they went crazy with namespaces/exceptions for no apparent reason (other than someone finished a c++ class and thought it was a good idea). Also the documentation is greatly lacking. This API has everything that SierraChart has always stated they did not want in the product. Given that point, I can understand why it is not being supported in the short term.
Also, on your point of
Has anyone else noticed that Ray and company missed releasing the next version this year (again). We were told in a webinar here that it would not happen in 2012, and definitely not in 2014. So they are either late again or they are planning a 2015 rollout (or it will be out in the next three days).
At the end of the day, everyone has to pick their data provider, charting application, broker, and trading interface. This can be all from a single vendor or multiple. Each platform excels at different things, and everyone has to make those decisions based on how they trade and what they can afford.
At the end of the day, I would not throw a platform under the bus for not implementing some crappy API (especially when that same platform has an open interface that the broker could have implemented to, but choose not to).
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I pulled two sentences out of the Sierra Charts support Board that I think summarize their position regarding Zen-Fire.
"There are not many Sierra Chart Zen fire users overall."
"Therefore, if you do not wish to use the Sierra Chart data feed with Zen-Fire, assuming we will be supporting Zen fire to begin with, you can either decide to use another program, which is fine with us, or use another supported trading service."
Unfortunate. There are not enough users of the Sierra Charts and Zen-fire data feed combination to make it worthwhile for either side to work with the other.
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Maybe you could try Investor/RT. I think you can connect to zen-fire while using their DTN Market Access for historical datas at 15$/month. Both Sierra and Investor/RT have similar features.
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Another great option is Rithmic (which is what Zen was based on before they were cut off) and Optimus. Optimus does a great job of supporting their users and SC.
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I used NT for several years. I did a trial of Sierra when I decided to study market profile. had it not been for that, I might never have known that Sierra runs flawlessly in comparison to NT. It takes 50% or less computer resources to run Sierra, and now 9 months into it have yet to experience any crash, data lag, or any other issue that would occasionally occur in Ninja on the same machines.
The more I got into it, the more I liked it. Little things that are not necessarily debate worthy, but in a nutshell Sierra is much easier to customize.
So, to me the Sierra/Zen-Fire issue has only one direction if I had to choose; to find another data service and/or broker. I am going to see what happens as it gets closer, and have no pressing need to trade in the coming holiday week anyway, so maybe another week will give more info to move forward on.
The more deeper I look in the whole situation, the clearer it becomes that the mistake is on Mirus side. If they don´t fix it I will have to find new broker and datafeed. I will see how quickly they react tomorrow or the days after.
I am just wondering who had the "great idea" in Mirus to do all the changes during Christmass when everybody is on hollidays and can´t react.
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I am not so sure Rithmic will be supported much longer at Sierra,
because of this statement from Sierra:
As far as Rithmic and Sierra Chart goes, if Rithmic does not want to continue to have Sierra Chart users, we will offer them to use the Sierra Chart market data feed instead of the Rithmic one in order to reduce bandwidth expenses. At this point, everything is OK. We just want to make sure there is not going to be a future problem by making sure that people who are using Rithmic are actually trading.
I'm in the same boat as everyone else here, with Mirrus for many years, used to use Ninja but SC provides things Ninja doesn't. Couldn't care less who's at fault, just need to move on.
I'm considering Global Futures with OEC data on Sierra Charts. Anyone have any experience with OEC data? (not interested in their charting platform) On the plus side OEC servers hold OCO orders so you don't have to worry about losing your internet connection in the middle of a trade. On the minus side, you can only have data for 5 instruments running at a time.
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We apologize for the technical issues many of our clients have been experiencing this morning. We are aware that a number of traders are encountering disconnects and the ZenFire technology team is working to fully resolve the issue.
The stability of your trading solution is our number one priority. As this technical issue is being addressed, we suggest our traders avoid live trading until connection stability is restored.
We greatly appreciate your patience as these items are resolved. Our traders trust in our services is paramount and we are working as quickly as possible to provide the level of responsiveness you are accustomed to.
Our support team has been receiving a number of inquiries and we apologize for any delay in a response. We are working to fully address each customer inquiry as it is received and will be responding to all in full.
If you need assistance with any live orders or open positions, please contact our live trade desk directly at 312.423.2234.
Thank you again for your patience and we apologize for the interruption.
So that would mean Sierra chart charge of $27/mo (assuming monthly subscription on lowest level)
plus Sierra Chart data charge of $35/month
plus roundtrip cost of $4.64/contract on something like CL (commission and fees)
Is that about what you calculate?
Thanks
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That would be correct if I would be using the package 3 Sierra. I have to use package 5 however which is the only package with footprints (they call it number bars) and volume profile. I just checked their pricing when I wanted to answer your question and it seems that they lowered the price for package 5 just after I subscribed for 1 year They charge 40 USD/month now, but if you subscribe for 1 year it's 31.20 USD/month + the data 35 USD/month. Together 66.20 USD.
IB roundturn commision is around 4.02 USD/contract for US index futures which I am trading mostly (NQ, YM, ES) and approx. 4 eur for EUREX products (FDAX, FESX, FGBL).
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Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: My own custom solution
Trading: Emini Futures
Posts: 49,792 since Jun 2009
Thanks: 32,326 given,
97,628
received
Moderator Notice
I changed the thread title from "Zenfire Mirus drops Sierra" to "Sierra drops Zen Fire Mirus", it was bugging me too much and I think it more accurately reflects the situation.
amp futures offered me package 3 sierra with no monthly charge, but on a 50 cent transactional basis.
It uses TT data feed and I really like it. It has no draw volume profile or TPO in the package 3 version.
I tried xtrader, but did not like it.
I opened a sub account under my main account, and they let me use it on that account.
IT is a good way to check out sierra with no monthly charge to see if you like it.
I have to keep ninja also , because there is an auto strategy on ninja that I have not been able to convert to the others yet. Again, a sub account lets me keep all platforms up and running. Easy to move money between accounts as needed for margin.
I am setting the 3rd account up with rithmic this week.
Also, I no longer worry about whether to use this platform or that platform. I just keep them all handy !
cqg, rithmic and TT
shane
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I am keeping the Mirus account but opening another. This thing will settle down (more the Zen-Fire with NinjaTrader) eventually, and in the time being it gives a good incentive to test drive something new. I was very happy with zenfire/mirus, so not panicking and closing the door there.
I went to Optimus with @mattz. So far, I am liking the feeling that we are in the same state, even though Vision is not. My thoughts were, ZenFire's cousin is Rithmic, and I might actually get to drink a few with a broker. lol!!!
@GaryD Sounds awesome to me. We go once a year to Orlando for the Gymnastics national.
We will meet up for sure!
Matt
Trading futures and options involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. You may lose more than your initial investment. All posts are opinions and do not claim to be facts. Please conduct your own due diligence. Use only Risk capital when trading Futures.
1 800 771 6748 local 561 367 8686 email support@OptimusFutures.com
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@glennts we have cleared Vision from day one and our customers survived Refco, MF Global and PFG.
Any FCM with over 20 years has to endure a lot of regulation and fines.
Our customers at Optimus experienced no drama. Thank you you for your due diligence and reporting.
Matt
Trading futures and options involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. You may lose more than your initial investment. All posts are opinions and do not claim to be facts. Please conduct your own due diligence. Use only Risk capital when trading Futures.
1 800 771 6748 local 561 367 8686 email support@OptimusFutures.com
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what are your opening account balance requirements?
what are your daytrade margins on the popular emini contracts?
(ES, EMD, YM, NQ, QM, CL, TF/AB/ER2, 6A, 6B, 6C, 6E, 6S)
what are your platform choices, and associated fees monthly, if any?
what or which data vendors and fees are available, for say the Ninja platform?
sure would be nice to know those essentials, perhaps even pick up a few converts along the way
If safety was priority number one, I sure as hell would not be trading futures... lol!
I am not all in. But you never know until you know. In my mind, at least they are heavily watched.
I looked into everything that worked with Sierra. I called him, not the other way around. So I am either good to go, or on my own, which is nearly the same thing.
We are working on our calculated market statistics, like NYSE TICK. These are intended to be of very good quality and accuracy. We plan to release these in February.
In regards to Zen-Fire and Sierra Chart, if you have a look around at the postings about what is currently going on, at the time of this posting, with Zen-Fire now that it no longer utilizes Rithmic technology, it would not even matter whether we supported their API component or not. There are numerous technical problems being reported on this forum, ninja trader forum, and Mirus has acknowledged this. It would only makes sense that we stay clear of this until these problems are worked out and resolved. Zen-Fire users were always a small percentage of our user base.
We do not work with in process API components. We thought we would make an exception to the new Zen-Fire API, but after working through it, we decided not to continue because of the problems and confusion. It was a mistake for us to even consider this API or any other API for that matter going forward. This comment in no way should be taken negatively towards Mirus or the API developer. These are our own personal views based on decades of experience. We believe in quality and logical engineering and working with a neutral communications protocol between the client and the server.
We believe that when it comes to communicating orders between the client and the server and all of the trading related data, this must be done in a very well understood, clear and structured format. The best protocol is FIX and the best implementation we have seen is TT.
Edit: Also the DTC protocol that we are working to establish, is a good protocol as well. It is efficient with market data. And there is one clearing firm that has adopted it.
We work at the protocol level. We have also started an initiative in this industry to a develop a plug-and-play communications protocol between trading program/applications and the backend trading services and data feeds. This allows complete interoperability between the clients and the servers. If you have a look at the Sierra Chart website, you can learn about the DTC protocol initiative.
We hope Zen-Fire and others will join us in this effort.
However, we do not limit ourselves to DTC. We can work with any protocol, as long as it is logical and clearly documented. We also need sufficient time to be able to interface to a service. With Zen-Fire, there was not sufficient time. The whole thing happened too quickly.
If we have said things, that are not considered appropriate here, then the administrator can delete them. I just wanted to get some thoughts out there to bring an understanding among our Zen-Fire users. If you currently have a Sierra Chart account with paid usage time and cannot use it because you do not have access to Zen-Fire and were previously using Zen-Fire, please get in touch with us about this.
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Rithmic has discontinued their contract with ZenFire. It means ZenFire is no longer available through the Ritmic API that is used in 3rd party platforms like MultiCharts and others. We were provided with a new ZenFire API but as it was developed by ZenFire in short terms, it is not stable enough. We're developing the broker and data feed connections to ZenFire and manage intensive testing to make it work as it should in MultiCharts. Our development team are doing their best to complete the connection development in the shortest possible time. We're sorry for the inconveniences.
We'll be sending the e-mails and posting all the necessary updaters on our Forum for a new API once they are ready. Unfortunately there is no ETA at the moment. Thank you for understanding.
There needs to be more attention brought to this concept of API components. These components are developed for amateur/beginner programmers. Professional programmers do not need to mess around with API components. They only cause us unnecessary trouble and complications.
The idea that a protocol cannot be open, and needs to be private and confidential, is complete nonsense. We have had enough of this nonsense. And Mirus and others should learn something from this.
None of us should be supporting the in process API component concept any longer. This is the source of so many problems for programmers and the end-users. A lot of problems you face with connectivity and stability in the programs that use them are due to API components.
None of us should be using API components any longer and insist upon a change. We have already made that decision and Ninja trader and Multicharts should do the same.
Edit: For those of you who do not fully understand this discussion, I guess a simple way of explaining it is that every programmer has their own way of doing things. It does not make sense to mix with one programmers code into another programmers code base. Inevitably they will conflict with each other and there will be problems. You as an end user have no idea where the source of the problem is.
Each program (the client-side trading program, and the server side market data and trading server) should implement their programs using their own methods and ideas and then use a neutral communications layer between them. This neutral communications layer is going to be a protocol like FIX or DTC. Or some other proprietary protocol.
Obviously, we all have to still deal with the underlying operating systems which computer programs are built on. But the core functions of underlying operating systems, are generally well-designed and well-documented. Critical functions like network sockets and files are very thoroughly designed and provide a proper API. Although the code below a computer program should be as minimal as possible. This is why the fastest, most efficient, and the most reliable programs are ones which are built on top of as little code as possible. This is one reason we do not use .NET. Sierra Chart is built directly on top of the Windows API, at the present time.
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I am not a programmer. I really do not know why... but I have "ridden" a few platforms, and prefer how Sierra Charts rides.
I had no complaints about Mirus. I called them, they said they had no current plans to meet with Sierra, I said Thanks, and I had my own issues to deal with prioritized by my preferences.
I have always just wanted a damned Sierra Charts hat...
MarketDelta implemented the new API already as well. It is available via MarketDelta Trader.
If you have any questions about the products or services offered by MarketDelta, please send me a Private Message or use the futures.io "Ask Me Anything" thread.
Phone: 1.312.922.7800
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Actually it´s the other way around, SC dropped ZF, they are not willing to support the new Zenfire version.
Another problem is you now can´t subscribe to the SC realtime futures data anymore as ZF user, which was a great alternativ to IQfeed, at only 35 USD per month. It only works when you have subscribed to one of the supported trading services, and ZF is not one of them anymore!
According to the cost calculator you should only be paying 1,66 per side (eminis), are you paying 50 cents on top of that? or 1,16 exchange fee + 50 cents per side?
The stability of your trading solution remains our number one priority. Following the ZenFire service interruptions experienced over the past week, we want to ensure you have additional options to trade your account.
We are currently exploring multiple solutions for our traders and expect to have an update on an alternative connection within 24 to 48 hours.
In addition, you can transition your current Mirus account to an interim trading solution based on your FCM.
To start your transition, please contact your broker here at Mirus or Mirus Support at 312.262.1288 to discuss the connectivity options currently available.
Thank you again for your continued patience."
AKA, "heat"... they got on the wrong side of this "trade"
OK, but hopefully we can establish better connectivity in this industry between clients and servers. If you would like to join us on DTC we would be more than happy.
And from what we can see, there are currently serious connectivity problems to Zen-Fire. The new Big tick Zen-Fire, clearly was not ready for production use. This has been proven.
What good is it if users cannot connect, at least for the time being. What if Zen-Fire does not survive because trading customers move to other backend trading platforms. Then all of the development time that was spent was for nothing. We spend time on the new Zen Fire API as well before I made the decision to halt. There was not a good feeling about it.
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Based on the discussions both here and on the Sierra forum, my opinion is that Sierra appears to be making the tough and less popular decision in the short term in an effort to ensure a better long term.
I use to work in IT (various areas) for 8 years and it was common place for quick fixes to be imposed on us by business, clients etc,...only to find ourselves having to rewrite and do things properly years down the line. The end result being double work and putting up with inefficient technology just to kick the can down the road. Not to mention how messy things got (in terms of code, architecture etc)
Do things right the first time. Well done Sierra.
Diversification is the only free lunch
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Clearly this is a total muddle and Mirus will pay for it one way or another.
If you are live trading you should have a technical setup that has works well together but you should avoid bundled solutions.
- Charting
- Broker Connection
- Market Data
should not be bundled and should be separate. I understand the "one stop shop" solution and see that they are competitively priced but that is all your eggs in one basket. Avoid it. It is just good risk management practice.
I've been using Mirus, Ninja, ZenFire and I'd like to continue, it's all I know and I don't want to change - with that said, does anyone have suggestions as to a reliable, competitively priced data provider that I could use with Ninja and Mirus - if ZenFire is the issue it would seem replacing it would be the logical solution. If I have this wrong please let me know.
As Mirus customer you should be able to get ttnet or cqg if RCG is your fcm. if you want the cts t4 feed, i think your Mirus acct. has to be with Dorman.
This is my solution for now, using Sierra Charts through Optimus. Since I cannot run side-by-side, it is hard to comment on the comparison, and today is a slow day, but so far zero issues, fires right up, and looks good.
I spoke with Mirus today and it sounds they are going to offer an alternate data feed of T4 for use with Sierra.
For the per transaction cost of Sierra, I pay the 50 cents on top 1.66 instead of monthly fee.
For discretionary trading, it works out ok for me. I do more autotrading on other platform with 1.66 per side without the extra fee.
I dont do that much discretionary, which is what i use Sierra for.
I think it is nice they give you the choice.
They charge 40 USD/month now, but if you subscribe for 1 year it's 31.20 USD/month + the data 35 USD/month. Together 66.20 USD.
