[Head2k]

I tried NT only briefly and never attempted to program in it, but I've been using AmiBroker for a year or so. I am no programmer and only knew some basic general syntax, since I learned Pascal as a child. And I must say I had no difficulties to code in AFL, after I read the appropriate parts of the AmiBroker manual. AFL is strong and fast with arrays. And the only difficulty I had in the beginning was to distinguish between array and number variables and appropriate syntax when using them.
I don't know C, but AFL is said to be very similar to it. So if someone can code in C he should have no problems with AFL. What I like on AmiBroker is that I always could code what I wanted. It is very flexible.
But as i said, I cannot offer a comparison with NT.

Anyway, why not to donwload both (AB has a trial and NT is for free) and try them both?

[tommaso]

Originally Posted by thinkingfield »

I am interested in starting to system trade. I have several years of option market making experience in commodities. I also have many years of hobby programming experience (C, VB, VBA, Java, some C++).

I am looking to start with a low cost platform to get my feet wet with systems and backtesting.

Looking for charting also.

So, any suggestions between Amibroker or Ninjatrader? are there others that i should be looking at?

I am concerned mostly with energy futures and commodities, not equities.

Thanks!!

For a free professional platform specialized in futures (especially energy) you can check out this one

[Some examples of live trading with it are shown on other forum too. ]

T

[steveh2009]

If you want to go totally free, then you can use NT for charting and then you can auto trade, programming in C# with TradeLink.

You can find out more about TradeLink at:

tradelink-users | Google Groups

It's been around for some time and gets a lot of updates, attention to user input on a regular basis by its creator.

Amibroker is good to have for charting, archiving your data and it has the most powerful backtesting of the three. It would probably be the most tedious to setup for auto trading but the user community has put some decent scripts together to get you started. Personally, I find the array-based approach of AfL coding too hard to read once I've been away from the code for awhile.

[Personally, I think you'll learn more by hand backtesting]

[Donski]

I have used both and have found NT to be somewhat clumbsy to use. Although I think NT has more advanced programming features that will serve us well in the future.

One thing about NT that is somewhat irritating is that you cannot use your own data. I know they provide data free but I have a couple of symbols that I manually keep updated.

Is there a way to use this data in NT? It is in MetaStock format.

[Ninjatrader_Staff]

Originally Posted by Donski »

Is there a way to use this data in NT? It is in MetaStock format.

We do support import of MetaStock data.

Importing

See the "Understanding the import options" section.

[gianno]

Originally Posted by Ninjatrader_Staff »

We do support import of MetaStock data.

Importing

See the "Understanding the import options" section.

The data format is strange. Why not having a semicolon after the date in tick and minute data as in daily data?

I have another question: can your program read text files for startegy building purposes? I want to read code generated by Price Action Lab in text file format to build strategies. Can I do that? Do you have a text file reading function?

[Ninjatrader_Staff]

Originally Posted by gianno »

The data format is strange. Why not having a semicolon after the date in tick and minute data as in daily data?

I have another question: can your program read text files for startegy building purposes? I want to read code generated by Price Action Lab in text file format to build strategies. Can I do that? Do you have a text file reading function?

It's a string representation of the DateTime in .NET, Daily bars don't require the time component.

Yes, NinjaTrader can read text files. NinjaScript is C# which is a non proprietary programming language. Thus, there are many approaches to reading a text file. Following ia reference sample that demonstrates how to read a text file.

Indicator: Using StreamReader to read from a text file - NinjaTrader Support Forum

I don't visit this forum on a frequent basis so sorry for the delayed response. If you have further questions, for the fastest response please use the following support resource - NinjaTrader stock, futures and forex charting software and online trading platform. Support.

[steveh2009]

Forgot to mention...

MultiCharts DT is free and you can use their trading interfaces for free as well. This is great for discetionary traders who have no need for automating trades or writing their own indicators.

Psst. Little money advice. If you're not a successful trader already, it's a bad idea to buy the lifetime license deal for either NT or MC.