Ninja Trader with AMP Brokerage


I'm considering buying the Ninja super dome for $995 just to escape Trade-Station platform prices

your input for good or bad greatly appreciated

PS I mostly trade the SP Emini and sometimes stocks as well
Originally posted by khamore1

YSS. I'm surprised and confused by your reply. surprissed because every day I get a different information about Ninja Dome
I,m confused because I talked to AMP they informed me that the only money I have to pay them is a Brokerage Fee . did I miss something in your reply?
concerning the delay in Ninja charts, Which charts brokerage do you use which is faster than Ninja?

Thank you for your reply


The basic version of NinjaTrader is "free" for Amp and Mirus Futures clients. I put "free" in quotes because the nominal cost of using NinjaTrader is included in your brokerage commission.

I suggest you consider using the basic version of NinjaTrader for a while before purchasing the lifetime license. The reason to purchase a lifetime license is if you later decide you need the ATM functionality or other advanced automated trading strategy features enabled in the full version of NinjaTrader.

NinjaTrader using the Zen-Fire data feed is as fast and stable as any retail level trading platform currently available. This is the setup I use for my trading.

For charting using NinjaTrader, if you want zero lag, you simply go into the properties for that chart and set the chart update frequency to zero ( 0 ), and the chart will refresh on each new tick in real time with zero lag. This feature is provided to allow users to fine tune their system for optimal performance. For myself, I will set the refresh rate to 10 milliseconds on the slower time frame charts, anything above the 5 minute time frame chart. A 30 or 60 minute chart does not need zero lag, you will not notice a 10ms delay on a 30 minute chart.
What is the rate for an ES trade including all your ninja licensing using the static dom ? It's probably more than 50% expensive than what I pay. But I looked at it and agree that AMP and Mirrus cover these extra costs. You have to understand in my trading that is a cost of more than $10.000 just because I would go to AMP or Mirrus and you pay for my NT Static DOM. the $10.000+ yearly cost is not even comparable just to use the static dom for 'free' ??

On the other hand there is something very important to say :

I dropped the zenfire datafeed, because it was giving me incorrect bid/ask data. I'm on DTN/IQfeed. I don't consider Zenfire a good enough datafeed for my charts. It is just a rebranding of the Rithmic datafeed but then worse. Zenfire is only a marketing name, in fact Zenfire as such doesn't exist.

Again you are incorrect about the delay of the charts. Go to ninjatrader 7 and try to put your chart to 0 delay. It's not possible, ninjatrader 7 puts you on a minimum delay of 0,1seconds. That is unacceptable, Ninjatrader 6.5 let you do it to 0 but ninjatrader is not supporting 6.5 anymore on windows 7 sp1.

You are not fooling me, you are giving false data and users should understand that ninjatrader looks good from a distance but it's utterly CRAP. They can't even put up a correct p&l screen. I traded multiple contracts and it's still always wrong in ninjatrader. The rollovers are not correctly handled, and they have problems with people in different time zones. I can go on and on. I myself am probably responsible for at least 50 reported bugs, some of them fixed others they didn't want to look into it.

Forget ninjatrader, get sierracharts or other.
YSS you have raised a number of important issues in your comments.

Commission Cost: I consider Mirus / Amp / Infinity to be in the middle of the road in terms of retail commissions. As you correctly point out, Amp / Mirus / Infinity are not the cheapest retail commission available in the market. Part of the commission covers support, both broker and technical. Any of these 3 provides high quality (fast and personal) customer support. Cheaper solutions often do not provide this to customers. For a new trader just starting out, such as the originator of this thread, good quality support is worth the nominal cost. Most new traders are not going to be operating at the $10K per year commission level. So its a cost / benefit trade off, newer traders are better off (IMHO) with higher quality personal support starting out.

NT 7.0 Chart Update Frequency: Thank you for pointing out this change in NT 7.0. With NT 7.0 they have optimized the chart refresh throughput using a 100 millisecond chart update rate. Due to this optimization in NT 7.0, using an average chart workspace running the 100 ms refresh rate will update faster than was possible with NT 6.5 with the zero refresh rate.

Zen-Fire data feed: Up until this last year, Zen-Fire was a true unfiltered stream. This allowed us to develop true order flow analysis algorithms. There may be some flow control buffering occurring at the zen-fire data server, I personally do not know if there is or not, but when the CME data reaches my computer (even during the peaks of fast market conditions) it is not being packetized in any way that I can see. See my posts below for several video cap's of demonstration tests I performed to help clarify this issue. The stream appears unfiltered to me.

CQG Feed: I have not tested this feed being provided by Amp Futures. CQG is a pro-level data feed, and up until now has been on the expensive side, but worth it for pro traders. If the CQG stream being provided by Amp is a true unfiltered data stream, then it may be preferable to the Zen-Fire stream for that reason alone.

DTN Feed: As a current DTN subscriber, you might want to look into this issue a bit more closely. It is my limited understanding that Rithmic Kinetic is simply an NT 7.0 rebrand of the core Telvent DTN data feed. The only difference between the Rithmic Kinetic and DTN/IQFeed is the extra layer of code the IQFeed API puts around the core stream. Rithmic Kinetic bypasses this API layer and connects directly to the core feed, so in theory is a little bit faster (or at least is more efficiently optimized for NT 7.0).

I guess the underlying theme of my reply here is, things change in this industry. It has always been that way and I suspect always will be. As traders we all need to be adaptable and be willing to fit into new paradigms (opportunities) as they arise.

Edited to correct my Rithmic / Kinetic dyslexia issue.
Edit 2: to update zen-fire comments based on subsequent testing (see comments/video clips below).
Edit 3: corrected comments about 7.0 chart refresh issue based on further detailed information.
pt_emini thanks for your reply.

I can agree with your vision about commission cost. But for me it's unacceptable, I pay close to $100k in total commissions (all included), going with mirrus/amp/inifinity will raise this cost with at least $10k a year for me. I really have to have a good trading day for a $10k profit



I'm very happy to read that you suspect Ninjatrader to fix that 0,1second delay. I asked it to the CEO of Ninjatrader directly and he replied to me that he didn't even wanted to hear or talk about it.
With such an attitude, I think it's time that Ninjatrader comes from their pedestal and face reality. They are not the only software out there.

Zenfire : Like I said there is no zenfire, it's the Rithmic datafeed. About your remarks for the tick data, it's basicly impossible to do it correct on ninjatrader due to the weird way they handle and store the incoming tick data. It's an issue they promised to fix in 7 but postponed it, with some luck it will be there in 7.5 or 8, meaning X-years, and probably a few thousand beta versions.

Zenfire is good for an ordering datafeed, just like TT is. But not for charting. Those who use zenfire for charting must understand they will have errors/gaps-missing data/false data and especially wrong bid/ask tick data.

About DTN and what you write, you have it wrong. DTN/IQFeed made a deal with ninjatrader to brand it as Kinetick (not Rithmic as you wrote) so, Zenfire = Rithmic and Kinetick = DTN/IQfeed. I tested the build in api layer into ninjatrader compared to using the DTN/IQfeed driver software and I see no difference.

Why is the Kinetick datafeed not a good plan and is DTN/IQfeed better ?
* No telephone support, did you had any datafeed problems ? I had, I tried to call them, not possible, had to wait until their offices were open to get an answer to my mail : Support times sucks at kinetick !!!
* Only CME fees waived (we all use that right?) when you have a payed ninjatrader, trading enabled version, which you use minimum once in a while (they check on that)
* Only usable for ninjatrader, I can use my DTN/IQFeed on all the supported software 'at the same machine at the same moment!!' meaning I can have ninjatrader/sierracharts and marketdelta all connecting to my DTN/IQFeed

CQG: I will test it, but for now, knowing that ninjatrader cannot handle their bid/ask tick data storing correctly I don't put my hopes on it. Also, I got CONFIRMATION that in the deal Amp/CQG static dom licence is NOT included. You will have to pay extra for it (per trade)
About DTN and what you write, you have it wrong. DTN/IQFeed made a deal with ninjatrader to brand it as Kinetick (not Rithmic as you wrote) so, Zenfire = Rithmic and Kinetick = DTN/IQfeed. I tested the build in api layer into ninjatrader compared to using the DTN/IQfeed driver software and I see no difference.

I apologize for my mix-up with these new re-brand names, I corrected my above posting.

Why is the Kinetick datafeed not a good plan and is DTN/IQfeed better ?
* No telephone support, did you had any datafeed problems ? I had, I tried to call them, not possible, had to wait until their offices were open to get an answer to my mail : Support times sucks at kinetick !!!
* Only CME fees waived (we all use that right?) when you have a payed ninjatrader, trading enabled version, which you use minimum once in a while (they check on that)
* Only usable for ninjatrader, I can use my DTN/IQFeed on all the supported software 'at the same machine at the same moment!!' meaning I can have ninjatrader/sierracharts and marketdelta all connecting to my DTN/IQFeed


Excellent points. Comes back to customer service.

CQG: I will test it, but for now, knowing that ninjatrader cannot handle their bid/ask tick data storing correctly I don't put my hopes on it. Also, I got CONFIRMATION that in the deal Amp/CQG static dom licence is NOT included. You will have to pay extra for it (per trade)

Yes that is my understanding as well, anyone using the NT static DOM pays a nominal fee per trade to TT, there is no way to get around that with NT. For the sake of convenience, Amp/Mirus wraps that cost up inside the RT commission.
I really appreciate your responses .
Based on your recommendations I decided not to buy Ninja Trader Super- Dome.
I'm still using Trade Station for trading the SP Emini and some stocks
Will you please advice me on the matrix execution speed verses other platforms, and also their charts speed. Thank you very much
Tradestation is not cheap but it's not bad either. Their charting is good, speed is nice and their time&sales and DOM works good and there's a TON of custom indicators for them.

But like I said, it comes with a price tag.
Originally posted by pt_emini
CQG Feed: I have not tested this feed being provided by Amp Futures. CQG is a pro-level data feed, and up until now has been on the expensive side, but worth it for pro traders. If the CQG stream being provided by Amp is a true unfiltered data stream, then it may be preferable to the Zen-Fire stream for that reason alone. Moving to CQG will not resolve the NT 7.0 chart update frequency issue however.


pt_emini first tests on the CQG/AMP setup reveals that the data is not the same as the real top CQG data feed. The data seems to come from a company called Interactive Data. http://www.interactivedata.com/index.php/productsandservices/content/id/Trading+Infrastructure+Services

I have no clue why a top company like CQG puts their name on some other datafeed. Also it showed that compared to DTN/IQFeeed AND the real CQG feed the data that is coming from AMP/CQG is missing ticks.

For the moment the AMP/CQG deal is NOT giving the same quality data as CQG is giving.
Tradestation is not without it's own issues to contend with.

First off, TradeStation is a really really big application running on your computer. It truly is an 800 pound gorilla. You cannot have too much memory, 4GB would be a minimum, especially if your running it on Windows 7.

Since you will be trading the ES, the default network optimization setting for TradeStation will packetize (restrict) the CME stream, similar to how NinjaTrader delays the stream by 0.1 seconds as we discussed above. You must turn off the download speed optimization for streaming data in the network preferences. ( File > Preferences > TradeStation Network > Streaming Data Optimization > Off ) This assumes you have a fast enough processor + video card RAM to handle the chart update rate of the unrestricted stream.

Sign up for the TradeStation user forum and start researching the wealth of trading systems and indicators that have been developed for it over the years. TradeStation is big and powerful, but with that comes a healthy learning curve.
Originally posted by YSS

Originally posted by pt_emini
CQG Feed: I have not tested this feed being provided by Amp Futures. CQG is a pro-level data feed, and up until now has been on the expensive side, but worth it for pro traders. If the CQG stream being provided by Amp is a true unfiltered data stream, then it may be preferable to the Zen-Fire stream for that reason alone. Moving to CQG will not resolve the NT 7.0 chart update frequency issue however.


pt_emini first tests on the CQG/AMP setup reveals that the data is not the same as the real top CQG data feed. The data seems to come from a company called Interactive Data. http://www.interactivedata.com/index.php/productsandservices/content/id/Trading+Infrastructure+Services

I have no clue why a top company like CQG puts their name on some other datafeed. Also it showed that compared to DTN/IQFeeed AND the real CQG feed the data that is coming from AMP/CQG is missing ticks.

For the moment the AMP/CQG deal is NOT giving the same quality data as CQG is giving.


Thanks for the quick feedback YSS, greatly appreciated.

I can scratch Amp/CQG off my To-Do list for tomorrow.

I do hope to run a test of the NT chart refresh speed issue and with some luck get a video capture up for everyone to have a look at.
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