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over the years I have traded on many platforms, I started out using my commercial bank web platform, then I moved to Prorealtime, Ninja, Sierrachart, Motivewave, tradingview etc....
Once I discovered Sierra I liked it so much that my trading style became extremely dependent on it. On top of that I realized that since Sierra offered me a whole bunch of customizable features I was more and more digging into customization and details.
Then one day TopStep dropped Sierrachart and I needed to find other solutions to keep trading with them.So I moved to motivewave.
Years have gone and now I trade with other propfirms that use metatrader, which is graphically very poor and offers almost zero customization. This obliged me to focus more and more on trading size, risk reward etc... and this actually improved my performace.
My view right now (which might probably evolve) is that if you depend a lot on your platform, it's probably becuase you take less conceptual trades and you need fast execution to get in and out fast.
This will ultimately result in emotional trades and poor performance.
Let me know your thoughts
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Trading: Primarily Energy but also a little Equities, Fixed Income, Metals and Crypto.
Frequency: Many times daily
Duration: Never
Posts: 5,049 since Dec 2013
Thanks Given: 4,388
Thanks Received: 10,207
I've been using TT for about 15 years. For the first 10 or so it was XTrader and for the last 5ish their cloud based system. For most of this time I did not think their was any viable competition for what I needed. In the last year I have started using Stellar (in addition to TT). CQG have also changed their order routing so they would now be a viable alternative as well. So I definitely am a lot less married to my software than I was several years ago.
For me that is very true.
wow that's quite a jump and definitely not true for me.
Fast execution normally means automation, which normally takes a lot of the emotion out of it.
yes, you are right! probably the conncection between fast execution and emotions depends on your style of trading.
I tried Xtrader a couple of years ago, if I remember correctly it is mainly used for trading spreads between two instruments, right?
Trading: Primarily Energy but also a little Equities, Fixed Income, Metals and Crypto.
Frequency: Many times daily
Duration: Never
Posts: 5,049 since Dec 2013
Thanks Given: 4,388
Thanks Received: 10,207
It's considered to be pro-level, meaning its used more in prop-shop and institutional settings which are often a lot more spread based than retail trading. For me specifically I'm almost entirely a spread trader, and use their autospreader to trade spreads and butterflies. So for me its a YES.
Many reasons why one would need a specific platform- be it spreads or strategy specific, algorithmic environment, community support, performance/hardware requirements (in the case of low level customised platforms for FPGA hardware); or even specific manipulation of platform components (i.e windows, charts, DOM etc) etc.
Being tied to one or certain platform(s) absolutey does not mean emotional behaviour or poor trading performance.
In the very early days of TT (X-Trader) I specifically utilised their DOM as it was best in class, especially for execution; far better than any other pro retail offering on the market. The likes of Ninja came around which made life easier for retail and became more competitive; and obviously with NinjaScript can now be very customisable.
On the other end of the spectrum you have the free MetaTrader. And for all its flaws, its extremely lightweight (as is something like Sierra) and can be useful in this regard relative to other platforms.
Simple examples of use case and performance.
For traders who have strategies, methods or techniques that require a specific platform - no problem at all.
For those that don't and believe a certain platform will enhance their performance - major problem.
If your trading style becomes dependant on a platform that's perfectly fine imho. But you'd want some redundancies in place in case your style changes (due to changing market conditions or personal circumstances), or the platform becomes redundant or worse- goes out of business.
EOD- we all rely on platforms as a means of extracting market information, analysis and/or for execution. Many of us have used various platforms for all these reasons, and all of them come with strengths and weaknesses. Many of us have also migrated and adapted to other platforms where necessary.
Because nothing stays the same forever, and like all things trading and in life- using the right tool for the job is a good place to start
