AmpFutures/Ninja Trader or IB?

[wjrusnak 10]

Hey guys,

 

I'm with Tradestation currently and there a certain reasons I want to switch brokers. I was looking into Ninja with AmpFutures and I am currently using their free demo feature. Its a decent platform aside from some oddities, but definitely a manageable system.

I know a number of traders here use IB, but what are they using for charts and order entries. I saw on the IB site that it has Trader Workstation, but I'm positive I've heard people using other platforms for IB. Let me know what you guys think. So far I'm leaning toward Ninja with Amp, but I'm very open to the IB route also. Pros and Cons anyone?

 

- Bill

[sevensa 10]

You can use Ninja with IB also. So from a charting/trading execution platform there is probably very little difference, unless you want real tick charts which IB don't provide. It is just fine for any time based charts. I don't know what Amp does, but I am happy with what I get from IB.

[Harlequin 10]

With IB ZeroLine Trader and Bracket Trader are 2 good cheaper alternatives to Ninja for execution. For charting I use MultiCharts.

 

The main advantages of IB are global coverage of exchanges and the Universal account that allows you to trade Futures, Stocks, Forex and Options all from the same account.

If you only day trade futures AMP and others will all offer much smaller intra day margin requirements than IB.

[uexkuell 10]

Why not have both?

 

Several reasons:

 

- Sometimes you may be very glad to have a backup-broker. Just imagine you have a big open futures position with one of them and the broker's connection goes down (not so rare with IB, can't tell about Amp). You may then hedge with a position on the other.

 

- The wide-spread possibilities of IB may be an advantage in some special situations.

 

- Better data feed is a plus for Amp.