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I am a trader who likes to keep it simple. I only use order flow, inter-market correlations & pivot levels as variables of my strategies. I have a huge dilemma on which broker would be ideal for me; ninjatrader or tradestation? Which broker offers the best executions/fills? I only use footprint charts as an 'indicator' if you may call it one... so I'm looking for a simple platform with no lag and great fills, that's all. Any suggestions?
I'm using Sierra Chart (Footprint and so on). That's a good platform for that. My broker is IB (only for the order execution, not the datafeed, because the IB datafeed is quite poor). I think, that's a good combination. Did you ever try Sierra Chart? It could be a good alternative.
Hey, Thanks for your reccomendation. I forgot to mention that I would be trading via topsteptrader. Therefore, my only options are Ninjatrader or Tradestation...
It gets more complicated, because NinjaTrader Brokerage, for instance, is an "Introducing Broker" -- your actual account (in terms of which firm has your money) is not with them, but with either Dorman Trading or Phillip Capital, the "FCM's" ("Futures Commission Merchant" -- yeah, that's a dumb thing to call it, but it means, "your broker") that NT "introduces" you to. Then it's more complicated than that, because executions will depend on the trade service your FCM uses (I believe one uses CQG and the other uses Rithmic, but I don't recall now.)
Now, TradeStation is one integrated thing, an FCM with its own trading platform (and data and trade feed.) Although this makes it simpler, it may not necessarily make it better (or worse, either.)
More, the questions about executions (fills, etc.) are not the same as the questions about platforms (meaning: the trading software application you have on your screen that you enter trades into.) Generally, execution may not depend on broker (FCM) either, but on the data/trading service (CQG, Rithmic, etc.). Dang.
So which is better? Don't blame me when I say "that depends" -- I'm just trying to fill out the picture of what is going on.
How to decide?
I suspect most people do as I have done -- when I used the NinjaTrader software, I let TST hook me up to whoever they used with Ninja; now that I prefer Sierra Chart, they can connect me to whoever they want to use for that. I don't know much about TradeStation -- I believe they do their own data and trade routing, so someone with experience with them may have more to say.
But in general, I would go first with the trading software (NT, Sierra, whatever) and assume the executions will work well, unless I had definite information to the contrary.
I had that problem too but managed to find a workaround. If you add a quoteboard and add the current contract you’re trading it must continuously poll the Rithmic API which prevents the timeout issue that causes the disconnects. I just leave the quote board minimized and haven’t had any problems since.
I have been playing with SC for a couple years and would recommend it. If you are considering using Tradestation I would read this review I saw recently:
