Why NinjaTrader is the only real choice for the long haul

General Discussions
1

I’ve had my gripes about Ninja Trader but in the long run and even in the short run its probably the best trading platform available. The reason is simple because you can just pay for it once and you have one of the most powerful applications available to you to access the market. It is a one of a kind system in that it is one of the only professional applications that you can just pay for and be done with it. Every other platform has adopted the subscription based model of forever payments and that ensures that probably most people will not be long term traders. What I’ve learned is that trading takes a long time to learn and to understand and after blowing four or five accounts one generally decides to stop and one of the first things to cut is the monthly subscription to a trading platform.

But with Ninja Trader you have this massive weapon just available to you. You can use it on a demo for as long as you want after you purchased the full application and to be frank the cost of Ninja Trader is absolutely negligable. $1400 is nothing. If its something to you then you’re not understanding the access that is granting you. You are buying a terminal into the worldwide market. At any rate its an adaptable application because you can easily build anything and I mean anything for it. And in this day and age where we have artificial intelligence able to program what is in our heads its incredible.

It is the only application I could possibly recommend to any individual who expires to be a trader. Although I would never recommend anyone become a trader unless that is their wishing desire. But it brings a lot of benefits that you only start to realize three years or four years or many years down the line as you continue to grow in your profitability and in your understanding of the contextual market and the playground that you’re in. It’s about staying in the game long enough to actually get it.

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2

I agree with everything you’re saying here, especially the ownership aspect (SaaS is evil). I’ve used many other platforms and nothing can compare to the power NT gives the end user. It’s, by far, the most extensible platform out there. As a programmer, I know of nothing else that lets you not only create indicators and strategies but modify the UI itself. The possibilities are virtually endless if you’re willing to put in some work. Getting the lifetime license was some of the best money I’ve spent on my trading journey.

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3

There are drawbacks though:

  1. Lacking support: no official support in the forums, sporadic support from support@ninjatrader.com. This is a blocker for new users/traders.
  2. No support for bracket orders (both Short and Long orders on opposite side of price)
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4

Totally agree the lack of forum participation by NinjaTrader Support is a decision which will produce few (if any) real dividends over the long haul.

[Unfortunately, this decision being regarded as ‘stupid’ is being over-shadowed by the ‘cost savings’ currently blinding upper management.]

You mean bracket orders as in two separate resting entry orders?

For example,

  1. A LONG entry buy limit order below price paired via OCO with a SHORT entry sell limit order above price?

  2. A LONG entry buy stop order above price paired via OCO with a SHORT entry sell stop order below price?

I’m pretty sure you can do that.

I mean, that’s the whole point of choosing ‘OCO order’ from the context menu when you right click in Chart Trader.

5

It better be the way you are describing it to be…being an algo trader, one almost invests few hundred k worth of time before going live…everyone has to live with the insecurity that as a trader one is more invested in a particular tool than the tool is invested in the trader.