Futures Trading and Software

[Freddie]

Hi all,

Just in the process of finishing up John Carter's book and am thinking of moving over to trading e-mini futures both intraday and swing trading; mostly intraday to start. I will be using Interactive Brokers (IB) as it is the best discount broker here in Canada.

I'd like to find a software package like Tradestation that will work with IB as it looks like tradestation can backtest, has charting software, automated order entry and exit, etc. all that I need along with historical data. The only problem with TS is that for me it's $250 per month (A bit steep for starting out) and I cannot open an account with them as from what I remember a few years ago when setting up my IB account, Canadians are not allowed to open US trading accounts with US firms and that is why IB opened a branch in Canada.

So it's either pay $250 per month or look for alternate solutions. Anyone have any suggestions? I was thinking Ninjatrader for order management and charting, maybe Amibroker or Wealth lab for backtesting, still need a good source of historical data for e-mini futures.

thx for your help

[FLX]

Tradestation is only 120 to 140 a month with emini account. FLX

[Freddie]

FLX,

Can't open a brokerage account with them from Canada plus I'm happy with IB right now thus the $250 per month fee.

[GCB]

I've heard MultiCharts is good, but I'm not sure if it's cheaper. Supposedly it will run TradeStation EasyLanguage code.

[Soultrader]

Freddie,

Tradestation waves the platform fee if you place more than 10 trades a month with them. So you will be only paying for exchange fees.

I am not sure what your options are there in Canada but you should try to get a platform that allows bracket orders, OSO orders like Ninjatrader or Infinity AT.

[FLX]

Multi chart is good with ninji trader data feed the fastest on the planet. We clock them and ninji trader is the fastest!

One problem if multi chart go"s down, can you get service help like Tradestation to put it back on line!

[Minetoo]

Originally Posted by Freddie Hi all, Just in the process of finishing up John Carter's book and am thinking of moving over to trading e-mini futures both intraday and swing trading; mostly intraday to start. I will be using Interactive Brokers (IB) as it is the best discount broker here in Canada. I'd like to find a software package like Tradestation that will work with IB as it looks like tradestation can backtest, has charting software, automated order entry and exit, etc. all that I need along with historical data. The only problem with TS is that for me it's $250 per month (A bit steep for starting out) and I cannot open an account with them as from what I remember a few years ago when setting up my IB account, Canadians are not allowed to open US trading accounts with US firms and that is why IB opened a branch in Canada. So it's either pay $250 per month or look for alternate solutions. Anyone have any suggestions? I was thinking Ninjatrader for order management and charting, maybe Amibroker or Wealth lab for backtesting, still need a good source of historical data for e-mini futures. thx for your help

Freddie:
You are misinformed. Canadians most certainly CAN open accounts with US firms. All they require is for you to sign a Letter of Non-Solicitation and other standard account/tax information.

You might be interested in trading on the Infinity AT. This is the platform my firm produced. It's nice because it's free, intuitive to use and you can try a real time demo of it. A few traders at Trader's Laboratory are already using it. You can try it here Infinity AT

What got you interested in trading?

[keymoo]

Originally Posted by KhurramNaik You might be interested in trading on the Infinity AT. This is the platform my firm produced. It's nice because it's free, intuitive to use and you can try a real time demo of it. A few traders at Trader's Laboratory are already using it. You can try it hereL Infinity AT What got you interested in trading?

Yes I use that for execution and its awesome and use eSignal for charting.

[Freddie]

Thanks everyone for your help. I've been working with Ninja Trader the past few days and it seems to be more than enough for what I need and I still get to keep using IB for my broker. Isn't Infinity AT very similar to Ninja Trader?

I've heard that IB has better execution times than Tradestation and lower fees so it's not hard to recoup the $50 per month Ninja Trader fees with a little extra slippage and fees. Tradestation is good but I also think IB and Ninja Trader could be almost as good in terms of software and maybe a bit better in terms of execution. Anybody want to jump in on this?

Only problem with IB and NT are only 1 year of historical data from IB. Should be ok for most backtests but I'd like to also be able to do backtests in other market conditions. Anyone know of a good place to get historical futures data?

thx again.

Ed