Amibroker Vs Ninja Trader

[thinkingfield 10]

I am interested in starting to system trade. I have several years of option market making experience in commodities. I also have many years of hobby programming experience (C, VB, VBA, Java, some C++).

 

I am looking to start with a low cost platform to get my feet wet with systems and backtesting.

 

Looking for charting also.

 

So, any suggestions between Amibroker or Ninjatrader? are there others that i should be looking at?

 

I am concerned mostly with energy futures and commodities, not equities.

 

Thanks!!

[Tams 20]

if cost is an issue... then NinjaTrader is the obvious starting point.

 

Ninja is free, until you trade live.

 

Mind you, Amibroker PRO costs only $279 one time fee -- hardly a stumbling block for any aspiring trader.

 

 

Ninja supports C#... it might be preferred over Amibroker's proprietary AFL.

 

I should point out that Amibroker's AFL is a subset of C.

 

i.e. you should have no problem adapting to either.

 

 

Some people consider Amibroker's graphics more inuitive,

others like Ninja's comprehensive training.

I have tried both programs, I found both are capable software.

Edited July 4, 2009 by Tams

[diablo272 10]

Just a small addition to Tams' post above: You can trade live with the free version of Ninja, but you won't have access to the ATM function (I think it stands for "Advanced Trade Management"), which basically allows you to predefine a stop and a target, so both orders are placed simultaneously as soon as your entry order is filled. It is quite useful, and I always use it, but it isn't absolutely necessary depending on what you style is. Regarding cost though, I believe Ninja is about $60/month if you lease it for 3 months, which is the shortest lease they offer, and AmiBroker is even cheaper as Tams mentioned, so they are both among the most affordable platforms you will find.

[thrunner 10]

Just a small addition to Tams' post above: You can trade live with the free version of Ninja, but you won't have access to the ATM function ...

Unfortunately that is slightly incorrect. The NT "Direct" version that is free is only free if you opened an account and funded such account with a NT affiliated broker. The Direct version will let you trade on the chart and DOM without the functionality of a strategy or ATM (advance trade management).

 

The 'free' version of NT you get from NT will not let you live trade with any broker, although you could still chart and trade in simulation mode with no expiration.

[diablo272 10]

Unfortunately that is slightly incorrect. The NT "Direct" version that is free is only free if you opened an account and funded such account with a NT affiliated broker. The Direct version will let you trade on the chart and DOM without the functionality of a strategy or ATM (advance trade management).

 

The 'free' version of NT you get from NT will not let you live trade with any broker, although you could still chart and trade in simulation mode with no expiration.

 

I didn't know that, thanks for clarifying. I've only used NT through Mirus, so that is my only experience with the free version of NT.

[thinkingfield 10]

thanks, since the cost for both is low, i was interested in which had more flexibility. I don't want to put in all the time learning the syntax for one platform only to move to another.

 

i have been using NT for charting right now, it is a bit clumsy and does not handle volume and continous contracts very well. but the programming features seem to be good.

 

i was wondering if anyone had experience with both?

 

diablo272, how do find working with NT? do you need any other programms to compliment it?

 

thanks

[Blaiserboy 10]

You may find in the backtesting and automated systems areas of this forum people who have used both.....

 

Just a hunch.

[diablo272 10]

diablo272, how do find working with NT? do you need any other programms to compliment it?

 

thanks

 

I like NT for the most part, though you should check out the official NT forums and read about some issues people have with it, in terms of speed. I haven't had many performance problems with it, but you should be aware of them. I don't program, so I can't offer my opinion there. I don't find that I need another program besides NT. I do use Think or Swim to look at other contracts and equities, but that is only because I don't get data for them through Zen-Fire. If I could view these contracts in Ninja with Zen, I would just do that, since NT is far superior to TOS for what I do (though I can't complain since TOS is free).

[Head2k 10]

I tried NT only briefly and never attempted to program in it, but I've been using AmiBroker for a year or so. I am no programmer and only knew some basic general syntax, since I learned Pascal as a child. And I must say I had no difficulties to code in AFL, after I read the appropriate parts of the AmiBroker manual. AFL is strong and fast with arrays. And the only difficulty I had in the beginning was to distinguish between array and number variables and appropriate syntax when using them.

I don't know C, but AFL is said to be very similar to it. So if someone can code in C he should have no problems with AFL. What I like on AmiBroker is that I always could code what I wanted. It is very flexible.

But as i said, I cannot offer a comparison with NT.

 

Anyway, why not to donwload both (AB has a trial and NT is for free) and try them both?

[tommaso 10]

I am interested in starting to system trade. I have several years of option market making experience in commodities. I also have many years of hobby programming experience (C, VB, VBA, Java, some C++).

 

I am looking to start with a low cost platform to get my feet wet with systems and backtesting.

 

Looking for charting also.

 

So, any suggestions between Amibroker or Ninjatrader? are there others that i should be looking at?

 

I am concerned mostly with energy futures and commodities, not equities.

 

Thanks!!

 

For a free professional platform specialized in futures (especially energy) you can check out this one

 

[some examples of live trading with it are shown on other forum too. ]

 

T

[steveh2009 10]

If you want to go totally free, then you can use NT for charting and then you can auto trade, programming in C# with TradeLink.

 

You can find out more about TradeLink at:

 

tradelink-users | Google Groups

 

It's been around for some time and gets a lot of updates, attention to user input on a regular basis by its creator.

 

Amibroker is good to have for charting, archiving your data and it has the most powerful backtesting of the three. It would probably be the most tedious to setup for auto trading but the user community has put some decent scripts together to get you started. Personally, I find the array-based approach of AfL coding too hard to read once I've been away from the code for awhile.

 

[Personally, I think you'll learn more by hand backtesting]

[Donski 10]

I have used both and have found NT to be somewhat clumbsy to use. Although I think NT has more advanced programming features that will serve us well in the future.

 

One thing about NT that is somewhat irritating is that you cannot use your own data. I know they provide data free but I have a couple of symbols that I manually keep updated.

 

Is there a way to use this data in NT? It is in MetaStock format.

[Ninjatrader_Staff 10]

Is there a way to use this data in NT? It is in MetaStock format.

 

We do support import of MetaStock data.

 

Importing

 

See the "Understanding the import options" section.

[gianno 10]

We do support import of MetaStock data.

 

Importing

 

See the "Understanding the import options" section.

 

The data format is strange. Why not having a semicolon after the date in tick and minute data as in daily data?

 

I have another question: can your program read text files for startegy building purposes? I want to read code generated by Price Action Lab in text file format to build strategies. Can I do that? Do you have a text file reading function?

[Ninjatrader_Staff 10]

The data format is strange. Why not having a semicolon after the date in tick and minute data as in daily data?

 

I have another question: can your program read text files for startegy building purposes? I want to read code generated by Price Action Lab in text file format to build strategies. Can I do that? Do you have a text file reading function?

 

It's a string representation of the DateTime in .NET, Daily bars don't require the time component.

 

Yes, NinjaTrader can read text files. NinjaScript is C# which is a non proprietary programming language. Thus, there are many approaches to reading a text file. Following ia reference sample that demonstrates how to read a text file.

 

Indicator: Using StreamReader to read from a text file - NinjaTrader Support Forum

 

I don't visit this forum on a frequent basis so sorry for the delayed response. If you have further questions, for the fastest response please use the following support resource - NinjaTrader stock, futures and forex charting software and online trading platform. Support.

[steveh2009 10]

Forgot to mention...

 

MultiCharts DT is free and you can use their trading interfaces for free as well. This is great for discetionary traders who have no need for automating trades or writing their own indicators.

 

Psst. Little money advice. If you're not a successful trader already, it's a bad idea to buy the lifetime license deal for either NT or MC.