Do I need to download "Historical" versus Market Replay?

[patpat]

I already know I need to download Market Replay. I discovered recently that Historical is a mirror image of the chart of someone who I follow online named Mack. Whereas the Market Replay is always quite different from his chart. (He also uses Ninja Trader). It makes it difficult to compare my trades to his when the set-ups are different. I seem to recall reading somewhere that Historical data is already available and doesn't need to be downloaded. But I may be wrong. Could you shed some light on this, please? I will be using Historical instead of Market Replay going forward. Thank you!

[NinjaTrader_LuisH]

Hello patpat,

Thank you for posting on the NinjaTrader forums.


Playback supports running on Market Replay data or Historical Tick data. Market Replay data is the most accurate and holds both Level I and Level II (market depth) data. If you do not have market replay data for a time frame, you can choose to playback historical tick data. However using historical tick data is less accurate as there is no Level II data.

Market Replay Data

• NinjaTrader stores Level I and Level II together in a single market replay file to ensure that Level I and Level II events are perfectly in sync per instrument.
• Market replay files have the ability to record time stamps down the 100 nanosecond level. However, note that we use the time stamp provided by the market data provider when storing data. This means that you are limited to the granularity of the provider if the time stamp is natively provided.

Historical Data

• NinjaTrader Desktop can only use Historical Tick Data for playback if the tick data from your provider is stamped with ask and bid data. This is required to simulate the ask and bid price during playback.
• If your historical data provider does not support ask/bid stamped tick data, NinjaTrader will simulate the ask and bid price by setting it either to last price or last price +/- 1 tick at random.

Please let us know if there's anything else we can assist with!