Hello guys, I'm a long time user and lifetime license holder of Ninjatrader (sunk cost) and customer of Ninjatrader Brokerage, but I consider taking my business elsewhere. Note: I do know that NT bought Tradovate. Tradovate seems like a good alternative, but I'm open for other suggestions as well. Has anyone here used these for a while and have any experiences to share? In case anyone wonders, the reasons I'm considering changing: - Ninjatrader does not have a good system for tracking net trading performance. They only offer PDF statements which you need to manually download and if you want to track your performance you need to plot this yourself in Excel. I developed a system for this with macros and what have you, but it's still a manual job at the end of the day I'd like to not have to do. You can't even log in to their portal and have a basic P&L curve plotted. In comparison, Tradovate have an extensive electronic portal which tracks your performance in more ways than you can imagine. - Stability issues with the software. Through hundreds of trading sessions NT have worked just fine, but there's the occasional day where your charts start lagging and/or the software freezes. Lately I've had some issues with having to manuall "kill" NT in Task Manager in order to close it. At the end of the day it just seems a bit unstable. Note: If I use only a few naked charts there are zero issues, but if that's all I needed there's no reason to stay with Ninja anyway. I need multiple charts/timeframes and some indicators (had to build custom indicators as NT doesn't have anything out of the box that works). - Ninjatrader doesn't really make an effort to implement user requests. For example, you can't plot a daily, weekly or monthly chart using RTH values on a futures chart in order to mimick the actual index/closing hours. More than 5 years ago this was submitted as a request and nothing happened so far. Multiple other examples as well. The sum of all this have just made me a bit frustrated to the point where I should at least consider an alternative. Thank you.
I used to use tradervue but did not like it for whatever reason (it's fine though...) I have a spreadsheet that is automatically updated when any trade is completed in IBKR or the discount brokers, if you've already learned to write macros, why not just learn some C# and automatically update your excel spreadsheet?
I actually did spend a bit of time to develop that spreadsheet for tracking my trades, but at the end of the day I have to log in to NT portal, download a PDF, open it and plot in values. I suppose I could be able to automate that part as well. However, I would much prefer to simply view this directly in my trading software or at the online portal. Like this (Tradovate):
If the trade performance was my only complaint I suppose I wouldn't bother, but the sum of those other issues is what's tipping the scale.
What if I want to brag to you or someone else about my stellar trading results? Would you believe my fancy Excel-reports?
Just an option that would be nice to have. As for funding, I'd prefer to trade my own funds, but as I don't have a 500K account it would make things easier with funding. I have been talking to a guy who's expressed interest, so you never know...
I have been with tradovate for I think a little over a year now. On occasion charts lag, very rare though. The DOM also will lag the quote when markets are volatile and corrects quickly, but fills are accurate to price. IB was far worse on both of these issues. I haven't used TT in a long time, but it used to lag a bit in high volatility also. I do like having the trade data available right in the program in real time. I have only used the chat feature so far to contact when I have a question, and there are usually a few minutes between question and response, but not horrible, and again better than IB chat. I haven't had a need to call the trade desk so can't comment on that area. Hope that helps a bit.