NinjaTrader Review

Based in 2003, NinjaTrader gives software program and brokerage providers for energetic merchants. With a funded account, the NinjaTrader platform is free to make use of for charting, market evaluation, and stay buying and selling (the SIM model is free even with no funded account).

To entry the platform’s premium options—similar to superior order sorts, automated buying and selling, and backtesting—you will have to lease or purchase the software program (from $60/month to lease; $1,099 one-time cost to purchase). The Order Circulation+ suite of premium options, which lets you analyze commerce exercise utilizing order circulate, quantity bars, and market depth, is obtainable solely with a lifetime license.

The NinjaTrader platform is right for energetic merchants who need numerous technical evaluation instruments. The platform boasts wonderful charting, real-time evaluation, customizable technical indicators, Chart Dealer (a chart-based order entry software), and hundreds of apps and add-ons from Third-party builders.

As a brokerage, NinjaTrader gives entry to the futures and foreign exchange markets. The corporate has partnered with a number of supporting brokerages, together with Interactive Brokers and TD Ameritrade, to provide merchants entry to different markets, together with choices on futures, CFDs, and equities.

Buying and selling Expertise

The NinjaTrader platform has clear, absolutely customizable charts. It is simple to vary colours (for background, crosshair, gridlines, textual content, and so forth.), fonts, and bar spacing/width in addition to the general structure of your chart home windows. You may simply insert technical indicators, methods, and drawing instruments, that are all customizable inside the chart. The platform helps an excellent choice of bar sorts—together with time-based, tick, quantity, vary, Heiken Ashi, Kagi, Renko, and Level and Determine bars—plus an excellent number of chart types, similar to candlesticks, OHLC (with variants), Kagi Line, and Mountain.  

You may have entry to a number of easy-to-use order entry interfaces, together with Chart Dealer, a terrific software that lets you place and handle trades instantly from a chart (NinjaTrader was one of many first platforms to supply this).

The platform helps all the same old order sorts, together with market, restrict, cease market, and stop-limit orders in addition to superior OCO (one cancels different) orders. For those who’re all for automated buying and selling, NinjaTrader’s ATM Methods present discretionary merchants with semi-automated options to handle their positions. Alternatively, you may absolutely automate a method utilizing a “level and click on” building for non-programmers, or through the use of NinjaTrader’s C#-based buying and selling framework.

Buying and selling Know-how

NinjaTrader makes use of CQG Continuum as its major information supplier for stay brokerage accounts, though Rithmic is supported as effectively. Month-to-month information charges are required with a full market depth choice, or you will get high of e book information for lowered charges.

Information charges rely on the change. For instance, full market depth information on CME is $10 per 30 days. For those who want entry to extra devices, you may go for the CME bundle, which incorporates CME, CBOT, NYMEX, and COMEX, for $30 per 30 days.

You may play, pause, and rewind historic worth information on a tick-by-tick foundation utilizing NinjaTrader’s Market Replay function—a software that is useful for backtesting, commerce apply, and different trade-related analysis.

Usability

With a funded account ($400 for futures; $50 for foreign exchange), the NinjaTrader platform is free to make use of for charting, market evaluation, and stay buying and selling (you do not want a funded account to make use of the platform for SIM buying and selling). The set up course of is easy, and as quickly as you launch the platform, you may open charts, customise colours, and add indicators and techniques. To insert an emblem to a chart, simply sort it into the chart. And when you’re buying and selling futures, rolling is tremendous straightforward: Choose Instruments>Database>Rollover function.

The platform is powerful with numerous instruments and assets, and it takes a while to learn to use all of the options. Luckily, NinjaTrader hosts free weekly webinars that will help you get began. Subjects embrace connecting to information, one-click order entry, how one can arrange a workspace, fundamental chart creation, superior settings, and technique automation.

An excellent function of the platform value mentioning is the flexibility to position simulated trades, full with an imaginary account and revenue/loss abstract. Sim buying and selling might be particularly useful to newer merchants who have not had a lot apply inserting trades—and coping with the inevitable errors that occur, similar to expensive order entry errors (e.g., hitting BUY as a substitute of SELL, buying and selling extra contracts than meant).

Cellular and Rising Tech

NinjaTrader brokerage purchasers can use the companion CQG cell app, accessible for each iOS and Android. Whereas the app does not use the NinjaTrader platform, it gives an intuitive interface with real-time quotes, charts, and analytics. It boasts easy-to-use buying and selling and order administration instruments, superior order sorts, dozens of indicators, and customizable charts types and intervals.

NinjaTrader has indicated it is going to seemingly supply a devoted cell app sooner or later, nevertheless it hasn’t made any bulletins but.

Vary of Choices

The NinjaTrader brokerage helps futures, choices on futures, and foreign currency trading. If you wish to commerce equities on the NinjaTrader platform, you may undergo one in every of NinjaTrader’s supporting brokers, together with Interactive Brokers and TD Ameritrade. You may join a NinjaTrader brokerage account, or one in every of its associate brokers, on the NinjaTrader web site.

Information and Analysis

In addition to superior charting and market depth instruments, there are restricted assets for analysis or insights inside the platform. As we now have already famous, NinjaTrader is oriented towards a distinct segment of traders centered on energetic futures and foreign currency trading. From that perspective, the NinjaTrader platform has all of the instruments and options it must be profitable. The platform, indicators, and different options are customizable at a really granular degree, which is necessary for energetic or skilled merchants. Once more as a result of NinjaTrader is primarily a futures and foreign exchange brokerage, monetary statements, information, and financial information that you just would possibly discover in different skilled platforms are lacking. Whereas the technical information is complete, you will have to make use of one other useful resource for basic data when you want that sort of study.

Portfolio Evaluation and Stories

The NinjaTrader platform is geared towards energetic merchants—not long-term traders. Because of this, it does not supply any portfolio evaluation instruments or studies that will assist buy-and-hold traders make choices about asset allocation or particular holdings.

Buyer Service and Assist

NinjaTrader gives 24/5 and weekend technical help, together with a 24-hour commerce desk for emergencies and stay orders. Stay chat assist is obtainable on weekdays on the NinjaTrader web site, and the response occasions had been cheap. Go to NinjaTraders Contact Us web page to name, e-mail, or submit a help request.

NinjaTrader’s help discussion board, which you’ll entry by the NinjaTrader web site, is an effective place to seek out solutions to questions or publish a query when you’re having hassle discovering data. The discussion board is split into 5 sections: Information and Bulletins, NinjaTrader 8 (the present launch), NinjaTrader 7 (legacy launch), NinjaScript File Sharing, and Options and Suggestions.

Schooling

NinjaTrader and the neighborhood’s ecosystem has a wide array of instructional movies, webinars, and documentation. Distributors present a lot of the training, which incorporates promotional materials for vendor techniques, add-ons, and plugins, however we did not see this as a damaging. The existence of a sturdy ecosystem of different customers {and professional} builders will seemingly maintain the circulate of training and concepts contemporary. NinjaTrader gives a number of weekly webinars and recorded movies meant that will help you get probably the most out of the platform. The video library is damaged down into a number of sections, together with Order Entry, SuperDOM, Market Analyzer, Charts, and Technique Backtesting and Optimization to make it simpler to seek out what you are searching for. A restricted quantity of non-platform associated instructional content material is on the NinjaTrader weblog. All of NinjaTrader’s instructional choices might be accessed without spending a dime by anybody—purchasers and non-clients alike.

Prices