Purchased NT and now...

[johannes]

Hi,

I just took a subscription on NT to use it to trade on a paper account of InterActive Brokers first and if everything goes well I would like to go and take it live soon.

I've already a strategy that I've backtested very well and it looks good. But what things do I need to change / to think of to use it on live trading?
1) What period should I use to check to enter / exit trades? My indicator is running on a 3 minute time frame, but when this indicator gives a signal I would like to enter the trade as soon as possible. But I don't want to freeze my system because I let NT check to often for changes. What do you recommend / use as period? 4 seconds or...

2) How do you enter trades? Or what is the best way to enter trades? I only make trades on the ES, YM and NQ. Do you put in orders for market or do you use something like "EnterLongLimit(Bars.CurrentBid);"?

3) Are there other things to think about / check for live trading instead of backtesting / simulation trading on NT?

Thanks!

[NinjaTrader_JoshP]

1) Unfortunately we cannot comment on this. It depends on what works for your strategy logic. If you are worried about performance we recommend you use an as-strong-as-possible computer for trading live as well as taking a look at the performance tips here: http://www.ninjatrader-support.com/H...anceTips1.html

2) Depends on what you want your strategy to do. Please see this for a description of the uses and differences between order types: http://www.ninjatrader-support2.com/...ead.php?t=3271

3) Live trading is always different than any simulation you can do. You need to be aware of the risks of electronic trading. Please see this article: http://www.ninjatrader-support.com/H...njaTrader.html

[cunparis]

1) I trade 5 minute bar and up to daily. I use a 1 minute bar for entry. One could use less but that's fine for me. I could use 5 min but for some strategies I trade 60 min bars and I don't want to wait 60 minutes for entry.

2) I only use market. I think one should only use limit when you determine a buy point in advance. For example, if you're waiting for ES to touch support at 850, you could enter in a limit order at 850.50 but you could also use a stop order as well. ES is so liquid that there is no real advantage of using a limit order unless you're trading 100's of contracts. For stocks it's interesting because if you want to buy 1000 shares you could drive the price up.

3) I'm currently wondering the same thing!

Please update the thread with your progress.

[ctrlbrk]

Personally I use a limit order at the ask to enter.

EnterLongLimit(DefaultQuantity, GetCurrentAsk(), "long");

This is for the ES. Mainly I do this because it's my belief my data feed (IQfeed) is faster than my broker (IB) for data. It seems when I did market orders, I would instantly be down 1-2 ticks. This seems to no longer be the case now with the above method.

Plus I read somewhere that Globex market orders are simulated and as such IB would have to keep putting limit orders in at the ask to get you filled. I have not done any research on this to find out if it is true.

[NinjaTrader_Bertrand]

Hi ctrlbrk, good point - yes Globex supports only Limit and Stoplimit natively, market and stop orders are simulated by IB.

[cunparis]

Personally I use a limit order at the ask to enter.

EnterLongLimit(DefaultQuantity, GetCurrentAsk(), "long");

This is for the ES. Mainly I do this because it's my belief my data feed (IQfeed) is faster than my broker (IB) for data. It seems when I did market orders, I would instantly be down 1-2 ticks. This seems to no longer be the case now with the above method.

Plus I read somewhere that Globex market orders are simulated and as such IB would have to keep putting limit orders in at the ask to get you filled. I have not done any research on this to find out if it is true.

If you're scalping then I agree limit orders are essential. If not scalping then there is a risk of missing a trade which has to be weighed against the risk of losing 1-2 ticks.

For Globex not doing market, it would seem that the market fills are so fast that one could not lose more than 1 tick and that would only be if the market was moving fast.

[ctrlbrk]

It goes back to IQfeed vs. IB. It's my belief that IQfeed gets me the tick data slightly faster than IB. And since usually my strategies are waiting for pullbacks prior to entering, the price is coming down not going up (for long entry).

So if I use market, I seemed to always fill +1 or +2 ticks higher than what NT (iqfeed) reported as the last. Whereas, by using limit, that is no longer the case.

Could be my imagination, but I am happier using limit orders.

I am considering switching to AMP and Zen because IB has really got on my nerves lately, so it may be a moot point soon enough.

[cunparis]

It goes back to IQfeed vs. IB. It's my belief that IQfeed gets me the tick data slightly faster than IB. And since usually my strategies are waiting for pullbacks prior to entering, the price is coming down not going up (for long entry).

So if I use market, I seemed to always fill +1 or +2 ticks higher than what NT (iqfeed) reported as the last. Whereas, by using limit, that is no longer the case.

Could be my imagination, but I am happier using limit orders.

I am considering switching to AMP and Zen because IB has really got on my nerves lately, so it may be a moot point soon enough.

I kept my IB account but I just opened an account at Mirus. I've only used it for this week but so far my strategy is working properly with Mirus and I haven't missed anything. I have no idea if the fills are good or not I don't pay attention to that at the moment.

What I love about Zen-Fire is that it doesn't reset every day so I can run a strategy and just leave it running. That is awesome. IB is such a pain. The only downside is for stocks I need to keep IB and have 2 separate accounts which means splitting my capital which leads to less than optimal use of capital. But it's ok.