Continuous Contracts & Live Trading

[laocoon]

Hello

This may be a silly question but from what I've read so far on the forum it's still not clear to me whether or not a continuous contract can be used for live trading. (My data feed is Zen Fire).

Thanks

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Hello laocoon,

You will need to select the current expiry in order to trade the instrument.

However, NinjaTrader 7 can automatically merge historical data into the current expiry instrument. If 'Merge policy' is set to MergeBackAdjusted or MergeNonBackAdjusted, data from previous expiries will be merged in the chart.

You can check the 'Merge policy' settings at Control Center-->Tools-->Instrument Manager. Highlight the instrument and click Edit.

The 'GlobalSetting' can be found at Control Center-->Tools-->Options-->Data-tab.

[laocoon]

Thanks a lot for that Jason.

Regards

[tgilligan]

Continuous Contract ##-##

In the Instrument Manager when looking at Futures, in the Expiry drop-down, there is the option for ##-##. This provides a continues contract. I haven't found any information about it in Help.

How is the different from using the front month with a merge set?

Hello laocoon,

You will need to select the current expiry in order to trade the instrument.

However, NinjaTrader 7 can automatically merge historical data into the current expiry instrument. If 'Merge policy' is set to MergeBackAdjusted or MergeNonBackAdjusted, data from previous expiries will be merged in the chart.

You can check the 'Merge policy' settings at Control Center-->Tools-->Instrument Manager. Highlight the instrument and click Edit.

The 'GlobalSetting' can be found at Control Center-->Tools-->Options-->Data-tab.

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Hello tgilligan,

Please note that you will only receive data if the connected data feed supports continuous data. Please check with your data feed provider if this is the case.

The ##-## expiry will load continuous data from your data feed. When you load the front month contract, it will load data from multiple expiries which are subsequently merged in the chart.

[tgilligan]

Jason,

I am using Zen-Fire. ##-## appears to pick up the rollover date from the Instrument Manager settings, but merge without back adjustment irrespective settings to that effect. Is that correct?

Tim

[NinjaTrader_JoshP]

##-## means you pull continuous contract data from the data provider. This instrument is managed by the data provider and no settings in NT will influence it. The rollover dates and offsets in use on those contracts depends on the data provider you are using and how they merge the contracts on their end.

When you use regular 12-10 or 09-10 contract front months in NT it will use whatever you have set for the merge settings in NT. If you choose DoNotMerge, then no merging will be done. If you choose a different setting, that setting will be used instead.

[tgilligan]

Thanks Josh,

All clear now. Zen-Fire's ##-## appears to use the standard rollover dates, merged with no back adjustment.

Tim