I'm using Ninja Trader and IB but I need tick data that IB does not provide. Thing is I'm only paper trading so I'm trying to keep expenses low. Kinetick is $50 a month. Anything cheaper than this that I can use with Ninja Trader?
Kinetick is pretty deceptive. It says $50/month, but if you tack on more symbols, add some reasonable options (such as level II), and then add in exchange fees, you're looking at maybe $150/month. Then, there seems to be a hard limit of 500 symbols. That was a dealbreaker for me. I think if you want a reasonable data feed, you have to spend some $$, in the $300-500 range.
I ended up signing with Kinetick but I don't understand much about the hard limit of 500 symbols and what that means. I think with the CME waiver, I am paying about $65 or so. I bought the NYSE, Nasdaq level 1. I won't be using it much for now.
I use Sierra Charts with IB and exclusively use vol charts. I compared IB's vol charts against IQ Feed and the differences were minimal. Over the long term it balances itself out. Compare your IB tick charts to Kinetick tick charts and see if the difference affects your style of trading then make your decision.
I understand. I'm curious as to the "why", as tick data is quite a bit messier than people tend to believe (or want to believe). Boxcaring, different re-orderings dependant on exchange load, etc, all kinds of crazy things going on in there. The further you get from colo, the worse it gets. There is one well known provider - no need to mention names - whose retail feed handler drops on average 0.5% of all market data packets. That's 1 out of 200 packets - average - and we all know the distribution isn't linear, meaning when it's busiest, is when the most droppage is happening. And there is the issue of speed - 2000 ticks on a busy symbol is faster than the screen you are looking at can refresh - is this for something automated?
I use Mirus futures. They are technically 'free' and provide tick data via zenfire They actually charge 25 bucks a month if you dont make any trades Still better than the 50 you pay for Kinetic
how is this possible given that IB throttles their data and you only get a snapshot whereas IQfeed is a pure feed? the only explanation i can think of is if you're looking at relatively longer term charts so you wouldn't be able to see the diff anyways.
That is because sierra chart is the only program to correct the initial snapshot data from IB with the correct highs, lows and volume that ib publishes a few minutes later.