Just curious as to everbody's views on how they perceive the future panning out for TT and their place in the market. What with the lawsuits and the appeals for commission which Big Harris wants to sap out of users, do you think people will bite the bullet and give the man his 'get even more rich quick' money or are we about to see a revolution of the people with some software that beats the patent and competes with the good ol' TT ladder? Can't help but have a fair bit of resentment for what he has done in the short term but will he win in the long term? I suppose it doesn't matter really, seeing as he'll get his money out of this process before TT gets real quality competition. P.S. Thanks for sponsoring this sector TT!!!!
X-Trader is a quality product. Resentment doesn't come into it. As long as it gives people an advantage over the competition, by way of ergonomics, speed or reliability, they will use it. If/when it no longer does, they'll walk away. Simple as that.
Trading Technologies Launches Partner Program Will help third-party ISVs develop applications that integrate TTâs technology CHICAGO, July 6, 2005 â Trading Technologies International, Inc. (TT) today announced the launch of the TT Partner Program, which facilitates relationships with third-party developers that integrate TTâs technology with their products. The TT Partner Program provides third party ISVs with development support, certification testing, sales and marketing assistance and other resources to help them create and market their products. Such products might include analytic platforms, trading and strategy development frameworks, black box systems, and algorithmic and multi-broker execution platforms. âThe TT Partner Program provides an easy pathway for third party vendors to integrate into the TT software platform and take advantage of our leading technologies such as MD Traderâ¢, the FIX Adapter and our ultra high-speed gateways. Additionally, it gives our customers a wider variety of offerings that previously was not possible,â said Alvin Tanpoco, TT Partner Program director. www.tradingtechnologies.com/news-releases.asp
NinjaTrader Joins Trading Technologies Partner Programme Published: 09 August 2005 Trading Technologies International, Inc. (TT) and NinjaTrader, LLC today announced that NinjaTrader has joined TT's Partner Program. NinjaTrader's trading platform, also called NinjaTrader, will connect to TT's exchange gateways though TT's FIX Adapter. The NinjaTrader/TT integrated solution will mark the first time that TT's gateways will be available to the retail marketplace. NinjaTrader has applied for TT Edge Certified Partner status and is expected to receive this designation when conformance testing is completed this month. Conformance testing will check various aspects of the application's performance including connection, execution speeds, order rates and application redundancy to test for overall speed, reliability and stability. "This partnership with NinjaTrader will provide Trading Technologies with additional access to the thriving retail market, and it brings the power of TT's gateway technology to a large community of retail traders. The NinjaTrader platform is one of the most-used retail solutions in the industry and we are pleased to be associated with the company," said Alvin Tanpoco, TT Partner Program director. ( ... ) www.tradingtechnologies.com/news-releases.asp
The 'ladder' aspect is pure gimmickery. Has nothing to do with profitable trading. (Recall the popular wisdom that 95% of the players are losers - that's the kind of gismos they love). It may serve TT well by being able to wring some money out of court action or threat of action. On the other hand, TT seems to be well established and has a good press. In view of the fact that the financial and banking communities are switching IT operations to linux/unix environments, TT could have one day the rug pulled out because of their feet dragging on making a linux solution available. It seems obvious from reading recent ET threads that many users want an efficient no-frills solution available. No vendor getting himself lost in a perpetually growing crowd pleasing monster. No crummy charts and other bells and whistle stuff. Positioning such a truly OS-portable API solutions in the market at current TT rates with FIX as an option would look like a certain winner. Such an API solution should be free of Java or similar hogs and offer direct C/C++ supported socket access. In fact the X_Trader API could be used as a basis, except for the fact that you need X_Trader which runs only off M$ platforms. API information about X and FIX adapter should not be hidden away and access hindered by bureaucratic top-heavy agreement paperwork. If TT doesn't understand this, a competitor will one day.
you aint seen nothing yet. wait until ib settles with the x-trader god. all ya ib users will cry uncle.
Price ladders, I can't trade with them, I stare at it to much and don't focus on my charts for set ups, I quite using it long ago, gimmickery I would agree.
TT will probably continue to do well if they innovate, but their market share will probably shrink as the futures trading market becomes more fragmented. I have observing TT for over 5 years now, but I have never *used* it for trading. Compared to other futures front-ends, TT is the leader, FFastFill becomes an ASP, GL is shrinking, Pats is focused on low-end customers, R&N is focused on brokerage firms, EasyScreen is/was still struggling with new feature / product issues. EccoWare is gaining traction but targeting floor traders mostly. So, for professional electronic traders, at this moment, TT is leading. However, Niches are forming quickly, Strategy Runner is like "robot trading in a box", RTS and ORC are biting away at the Futures Options segment, EccoWare for floor traders. A few trends in futures (these sounds like predications ... ) that I believe have high probabilities of becoming true: * Higher percentage of trades will be from automated systems. Futures might hit NYSE like numbers (50%+ volume are programs) soon. Conversely, the percentage of trades inputed manually will probably eventually drop. * Traders will want to trade more complex instruments, especially investment banks. Say, cross product / exchange spreads. * Blurring of lines, today TT is a good "order entry" system, it is not an integrated system, why can't it do analytics? Why can't all order types be supported across all exchanges (Eurex, Liffe)? Anybody uses auto-spreader on TT on a regular basis? Don't you wish you can change its behavior easily? Whether TT can innovate to satisfy vastly different market segments remains to be seen. Arcade type of environments have been enormously successful in the last 4-5 years, and constitute a large percentage of TT users. Will Arcade continue to succeed? Or will they start be bought / merged (obviously Mac comes to mind)? When they get to a certain size, the incentive to get control over software (say, in-house) gets greater. I had head of a well-known prop firm say, "I *Hate* TT, but I tried everything else, and they all suck more", he then proceeded to spend the next 15 mins trying to convince anybody (including me) to develop an alternative. On the other hand, TT product cycle is getting longer, the FIX Gateway took a lot longer to get out than expected. The Super Guardian is still very little used, etc. TT is a smart company, Harris, Bob Slezak and Farley all really know what they are doing, too bad that Russ, whom I really liked, went over to the customer side. Fact is that it is now a "mature" company, and the only way to continue their growth is to smartly diversify into new products while hold on to existing users. TT is probably worth between 400M to 700M these days (an incredible feat, since I believe their rev is only between 80 - 100M, this is 5-7x rev! Whereas firms like DirectAccess, Sonic, etc, only got 3-4x). Harris will figure out a way to extract maximum value, he always does. I always suspected that TT won't go after the Exchanges (although in typical Blumfeld style, he bluffed first), but want a psychological advantage over the other ISVs. This is smart, it doesn't matter how much the other ISVs pay in the "partner program", be it $1 or $1M, but then when a firm choses a front-end to use, TT would pull out the "partner program" agreement, and wave "Look! We are the original and the real thing, these other guys are just copies and also-rans" .... Sorry for rambling ... and long ...
Agree...the trading ladder principal was great in the 1990's - everyting's relative and subject to change (imo).