Is it possible to use same lice key login to NT8 on diff machines with diff accounts

[manish_hss]

Hi, I have purchased multi-broker lifetime license for NT8 platform. I have few trading accounts (TDAmeritrade, Interactive broker and Ninja brokerage as well). Is it possible to use NT8 platform on different machines while using different brokerage on each machine. For example, I will use Interactive broker connection on one machine and ninja continum brokerage on other. If not, do I need to buy another key/keys ($1099 each) for different account. If yes, is it true if I open 2/3 accounts with Ninja brokerage as well and want to trade same instrument like NQ using different strategy same time at different account?

[bltdavid]

paraphrased: Is it possible to use same license key to login to NT8 on different
machines with different accounts?

Technically possible? Yes.
Last I knew it worked, but I don't have a 'need' to do this very often.

Breaks terms of license agreement? Yes.
Absolutely. Read here.

Should you do it anyways? No.
If you plan to do this often (ie, as part of your 'regular' trading),
you should buy separate licenses for all your machines. If you
need this capability occasionally (I develop using C#/NinjaScript,
so I need to install & test usage with NT in various/different states,
but such testing is not performed on any kind of 'regular' basis),
you still shouldn't do it. Thus, I have two lifetime licenses, one
is MB, the other is regular. Especially as part of your 'regular'
trading setup, you should buy an additional license for each
machine running NT. Buy them when they go on sale.

Are there repercussions if you do this? I don't know.
But it's certainly possible NT can monitor for this kind of thing
and take action against an offending license (say, by banning it).

Huh?
Doesn't some license leniency exist for users with a VPS or laptop?
It depends how you use NT. My understanding is this: you can install
NT on as many personal machines as needed, but it should only ever
be executing on one of those machines at a time -- regardless of
development or trading, live or sim, data feed or no data feed.

Does any license leniency exist for developers? No.
Especially for developers, sometimes it is very necessary to
test your work under very different scenarios & circumstances,
and this is made much easier if you use additional machine setups,
where NT is installed and configured into the circumstance you
wish to test against. I do wish NT mgmt would accommodate the
extra needs of developers in their license agreement.

I'm pretty sure the above is accurate, NT Support can confirm.

[manish_hss]

Thanks David.
I am not looking to find out short cuts but looking for legal ways. In case, I can't use in legal way, that's it. Then I need to buy another one. Just wondering if NT has a concept of multi licensing concept. I workaround was to trade NQ with one strategy and MNQ with another strategy with 10 times higher the size of NQ but commissions on MNQ are not in same ratio so commission overhead is very high (when you calculate real profit factor and ROI for the strategy). With Lifetime license, commission on NQ is $1.99 and on MNQ is %0.51 which is 25% so If use 10 MNQ contracts vs 1 NQ, I pay $5.1 for 10 MNQ which is 150% more then 1NQ commission. But I got the message. Thanks. Let me talk to platformsales.

[bltdavid]

You're welcome!

Just to be clear, with regard to MB licensing ...

Granted, additional licenses are needed in your situation where
you wish to execute live trades on different accounts on different
machines. So ... let's now add MB to this mix.

The key part is different machines. I mean, if you wanted to
execute live trades on different accounts (TDA, IB, NTB) on the
same machine, a single Multi-Broker license is sufficient. Why?
Because NT is only running on a single machine.

But, if you wish to execute live trades on different accounts on
different machines, you would need a different license for each
machine running NT -- but none of them would need to be Multi-
Broker -- they could all be regular Single-Broker licenses.

Make sense?

My point is: an MB license for each machine is probably overkill for
what you want to do.

When you purchase additional Single-Broker licenses, make sure to
ask NT to configure the license for a specific broker (TDA, IB, or NTB)
because a S/B license only allows NinjaTrader.exe to create connections
to a specific single broker -- which is configured on the NT license servers.

The only advantage of an MB license is that when creating a connection,
you are presented with a drop-down list of all available brokers. I'm saying
buy S/B licenses instead and have each licensed configured for a different
broker, meaning the drop-down list shows a different broker for each license.

When creating a connection, an S/B license will only show a single broker
in the drop-down list -- this single broker shown in the drop-down list is
pre-configured into the NT license server.

If you need an S/B license re-configured to a different broker, just send an
email to NT support and they'll change it.

[manish_hss]

Hi David,
Thanks for reply.

Let me step back and ask another question.
In case I have 2 brokerage accounts with Ninja brokerage. Can I open 2 NQ charts and connected one strategy to one chart using account 1 and another strategy to another chart using account 2. I assume even both strategies are applied to same asset class, because they are attached to different accounts, orders are not messed up and strategies won't reproduce inaccurate result. Is it true. In that case, I may not even need for different machines. Same machine, same platform but 2 different accounts. Isn't it?

[bltdavid]

.
In case I have 2 brokerage accounts with Ninja brokerage. Can I open 2 NQ charts and connected one strategy to one chart using account 1 and another strategy to another chart using account 2. I assume even both strategies are applied to same asset class, because they are attached to different accounts, orders are not messed up and strategies won't reproduce inaccurate result. Is it true. In that case, I may not even need for different machines. Same machine, same platform but 2 different accounts. Isn't it?

Yes, almost!

Same machine, same platform but 2 different accounts with the same broker.

That would work perfectly. Using the same broker is the key here.

Let's say you contact NinjaTrader Brokerage and open two different accounts.
Remember, they are both owned by you and so you arrange to have both accounts
available from one set of credentials. Why do that? Because when you connect,
you really want both accounts to appear in the Account drop-down list.

In fact, you can setup 3, 4, 5 or 'n' number of accounts with a single broker --
just follow the appropriate steps and fund them all separately. Talk to your broker
about how to do this. Remember, make sure all accounts are controlled by a
single userid/password set of credentials -- this is critical.

Wait, why is that critical?
Because, if you do it that way, you don't need the added expense of an MB license.
Yep, this is one connection to a single broker, so an SB license works fine. The fact
that 2 or more accounts are attached to that connection is immaterial -- it is a single
connection to a single broker, and that's what counts. An MB license is not needed.

And, because these accounts are all different but belong to the same set credentials,
multiple machines are not needed to run multiple instances of NinjaTrader. You'll need
just one (perhaps slightly beefier) machine, login to NT, start your strategies, choose
separate accounts as necessary, and you're done.

As far as two strategies on two different charts, each on a different account -- that
is the perfect setup. This is only safe way to trade the same instrument from two
different strategies -- each strategy is assigned a different account, which means
their real-world account positions do not conflict with each other.

More good reading here and here.

You might also consider using a Trade Copier, a list of available
commercial solutions is here.

[bltdavid]

More good reading here.