Hi All, I'm based in Canada and use Interactive Brokers for trading/execution. I am looking for another platform for chart analysis on futures. Used Thinkorswim when I was the US, it was amazing. Unfortunately, it's not available in Canada for futures (only options & equities). Can anyone suggest a platform close enough and easy to use like TOS? Thanks.
I believe NinjaTrader is available in Canada, and with a demo account you get basic charting abilities with a live feed for free.
Was looking at TradeStation last time as a viable addition to TWS and TOS. It's impressive, and cheap, and they had Trading Technologies help build it or something...check it out. But, I'm in the US, so still getting by with TOS and TWS charts. I also use Excel real-time charts with a VBA script and the (free) IBKR API -- very nice to have. Sometimes I use it just to track open p&l since TWS can be slow to update my mark-to-market portfolio value. I really like that API. Using it to execute and manage trades is quite another thing, however.
Use ninjatrader as a front end to IB. You can can set the properties of the connection to connect automatically to IB. Free if you only want charts. Pay for executions. You may have to download the separate IB API to get it to work.
AMPglobal has many platforms. You can ask them for demo on each of these platforms and decide which one is suitable for you.
Hello, What's so good about TOS? I've seen some other guys use it and I agree it looks great. Nobody mentioned Sierra Charts so far. I don't use it personally, but overall it seems to get great reviews. Personally, I use Ninjatrader and for the last few months it has worked exemplary with no issues. I've made some complaints about it from time to time as it have seemed a bit unstable and I'm not always happy with the priorities the developers do, but I don't have any comparisons to make and I'm sure other platforms can have issues as well. For the last few months I didn't have any performance issues. Ninjatrader should at least be very user friendly and quick to learn I think. Back in the day I was with IB and used Ninjatrader as my front-end. I don't recall having any issues and I think it worked fairly well. Good luck and feel free to keep us updated on your choice.
You can use NinjaTrader completely free for as long as you want for charting, analysis and trade simulation connected to your Interactive Brokers account. If ever there is a time you wish to use it for live trade execution, only then do you have to purchase a license. https://ninjatrader.com/GetStarted
--- Great, I like the fact you can connect it to IB. I downloaded Ninjatrader over the weekend, going to watch some Youtube videos and get familiar with this platform for front end. Seems like you can trade off the chart which seems like a great advantage, I'm sure there's many others I'll discover along the way. Do you know of any other great features on Ninja that come handy?
Great. Where can I can get more info (videos and articles) on how to connect my IB account with NinjaTrader? Thx.