NinjaTrader vs MotiveWave vs Investor RT

[virtusa]

Are you sure about that? Do you own a life time license bought a long time ago?

When I opened my brokerage account a few years ago now, Ninja pretty much offered only their own brokerage (Dorman/Phillip) or Interactive Brokers.

I know a guy who still trades through AMP, but that's because he opened an account a long time ago. They no longer offer new account through AMP, unless something changed since last time I checked.

I use a FREE version of NT8. I can choose any broker.

 

[Laissez Faire]

I use a FREE version of NT8. I can choose any broker.

So, you're using NT8 only for charting/analysis then? And using the trading software from another broker to place your trades?

That is obviously possible.

When I say NT8 is only allowed with a restricted set of brokers, I am of course talking about when you're executing trades directly through NT8.

 

[virtusa]

So, you're using NT8 only for charting/analysis then? And using the trading software from another broker to place your trades?

Exact. Use DOM from my brokers.

 

[Laissez Faire]

I considered doing the same earlier, but went with NT brokerage initially as I wanted to execute directly from the charts.

Pretty much happy, but I may find brokers offering better rates and can then use NT for free, so maybe it's something to consider.

 

[greenmoose]

I first started using NT7 around 2010, I think. Never had any issues, but I remember even then - quite a few people were complaining and saying it was an unstable and poor software. I didn't understand those comments as it worked very fine with me.

When I got back into the markets a few years ago, NT8 was finally out of beta and allegedly a superior platform, so I didn't even consider NT7. Everyone said I should go with NT8.

I did however not notice any particular improvements at all. If anything - it was worse...

One example would be the crosshair on your charts. Never had any issues with it on NT7, but on NT8 the crosshair would LAG and freeze. I believe Ninjatrader recommended people to not use it. WTF? I took them a good year to fix it. Unbelievable. It works now, but for a long time it didn't...

Another example would be RTH charts. I often use the US Equities RTH session template (09:30-16:00). This worked fine on daily charts on NT7, but no longer works on NT8? WTF?

So, you basically can't chart a daily chart in NT8 using similar hours as SPX. Yikes.

But guess what? A user on the NinjaTrader forum fixed this with NinjaScript fairly quickly. That's three years ago. Countless people have complained about this, but it's still not fixed.

Another issue I've been having recently is that my charts don't load/refresh when I first connect. The connection is fine, but no data is loaded. So, I have to solve this by disconnecting/reconnecting or exit/relaunch.

Man, I'm starting to get worked up now that I start thinking about this.

That said - I have never had any issues during a live market and once the platform is up and running everything goes smooth.

Having invested a lot in custom coded indicators and not wanting to spend time learning a new platform, I'm staying with NT8, but because of the reasons above I can't strongly recommend it. I still think it's a good platform though.

There are other people on the forum who seems very happy with NT8. Some run automated strategies on it.

Another trader I've been talking to is still on NT7 and happy using that one. Not sure how much longer they will keep supporting it.

Please feel free to let us know what you decide. Would be curious to hear your thoughts on NT if you start using it.

Wow!! Thank you. That is fantastic to get some real feedback and I appreciate the time you took to write your thoughts. I think I'm still leaning towards NT. The charting looks excellent and intuitive as well as extensive and as long as some of the frustrations don't affect live trading or speed they seem more annoying than critical flaws.

Again, much appreciated.

 

[NeedToLearn]

Pretty much spot on with my NT experience. I tried to migrate to NT8 and I keep running into problems here and there. Manual drawings disppear when I relaunch the platform, crashes if I load too many indicators, etc. I just keep going back to NT7 due to frustration. Charts are still great and easy to use.

I hear NT8 now supports options trading but they have yet to list greeks on it. Equity options are only available with IB though. I think investor RT will likely be the better choice for options data.

 

[greenmoose]

To clarify, Investor RT does not support options. I thought they did since they have instructions on creating options tables but it doesn't appear that there is any options functionality.

 

[Laissez Faire]

Pretty much spot on with my NT experience. I tried to migrate to NT8 and I keep running into problems here and there. Manual drawings disppear when I relaunch the platform, crashes if I load too many indicators, etc. I just keep going back to NT7 due to frustration. Charts are still great and easy to use.

I hear NT8 now supports options trading but they have yet to list greeks on it. Equity options are only available with IB though. I think investor RT will likely be the better choice for options data.

And no problems with NT7?

Been a long time since I've used NT7 now. Didn't use any custom indicators or indicators at all and my sophistication may have increased slightly, but I do remember NT7 as mostly flawless and stable.

There are guys on this board who seem to be super happy with NT8 though.

I'm just not one of them.

 

[NeedToLearn]

And no problems with NT7?

Been a long time since I've used NT7 now. Didn't use any custom indicators or indicators at all and my sophistication may have increased slightly, but I do remember NT7 as mostly flawless and stable.

There are guys on this board who seem to be super happy with NT8 though.

I'm just not one of them.

Lol I have less issues with NT7 than NT8. Only downside is NT7 does seem a little slower when loading up initially, especially if I have too many charts open.

 

[NeedToLearn]

To clarify, Investor RT does not support options. I thought they did since they have instructions on creating options tables but it doesn't appear that there is any options functionality.

With IRT, at least you can customize to accomodate your needs like those instructions if you have the datafeed. NT, you probably need advanced coding skills to make the options table fit your needs. I've seen one video years ago who managed to do it on NT7 as well through market analyzer, but it seemed like you would need to do lots of programming.