Guide and Review NinjaTrader 2020

NinjaTrader’s award-winning online trading platform provides direct support to day traders interested in futures, forex, CFDs and the stock market. This page will guide you through the NinjaTrader 8 platform, including features, indicators, charts, demo accounts, plus compatibility with top brokers including NinjaTrader Broker.

Summary History

Since its inception in 2004, the privately held company based in Denver, Colorado and Chicago, Illinois, has attracted more than 60,000 users and more than 450 developers. They offer a sophisticated trading platform with lots of charts and a wide range of features plus market data services. Thousands of 3rd party apps, as well as add-ons, enable extensive customization, fast order fulfillment, and advanced market analysis.

In addition, NinjaTrader provides brokerage services to assist both forex and futures traders at discounted prices.

Key details

So we know NinjaTrader can be used in some markets, but what are the key details to know before you download the latest version?

Firstly, there are no fees to use NinjaTrader’s standard features. This guarantees free access to the following:

• commercial simulation
• Market analysis
• Advanced Charts
• Backtesting & optimize
• Automated strategy development

NinjaTrader is an open source system, like the MetaTrader 4 (MT4) platform. The difference is that while MT4 attracts mainly forex traders, NinjaTrader is also popular among futures traders.

You can run NinjaTrader on Mac OS, Windows and Linux if you port it over.

NinjaTrader 8

Regularly updated platform, latest version in NinjaTrader 8. This brings over 500 enhancements, including chart changes (more configurable), improved alerts, enhanced platform, plus data and performance upgrades. The developers won’t stop there, and more user-led improvements are planned.

Why NinjaTrader?

Take a quick look at the trading blogs and forums and you’ll see many people wanting to know how NinjaTrader measures up against MT4, MT5, TradeStation and MultiCharts. So, with so many options available, what separates NinjaTrader 8 from the rest?

• Customisability – Their simple platform has been designed for traders who want to customize their platform and technical indicators. You will find floating windows and indicators that are simply not available on other platforms.
• Setup – They have carefully designed their platform to allow for quick and hassle-free setup. In less than ten minutes you can get NinjaTrader 7 or 8 up and running.
• Scripts – Experienced day traders often prefer to have access to multiple scripts. NinjaTrader 7 is great for this and NinjaTrader 8 has programmers porting scripts to their new updated version.
• Free Simulation – This free trial uses random data or live data updated once per day. Once you have honed an effective strategy, you can upgrade to live trading with real capital.
• Stop Loss Ability – NinjaTrader has a smart system that allows you to build your strategy so that both stop loss and target orders are sent as soon as you enter a trade. This means that if you lose your internet connection or get disconnected from your broker, your stop loss and target order can prevent a costly disaster.

Restrictions

Despite the number of benefits of NinjaTrader, there are certain limitations and risks to be aware of. Including:

• Speed of Market Analysis – Some reviews highlight concerns about the speed of the Market Analyzer when running scans if you are using more than 100 symbols.
• Apps – Those hoping for their NinjaTrader mobile app for Android or Apple devices will be disappointed. Access to CQG Mobile is available to users of NinjaTrader Brokers. Also, there have been discussions about a native mobile app so that iOS and Android users might get lucky soon.
• Hard to learn – This was especially true for NinjaTrader 7 version. However, to a certain extent this has been remedied by their latest offering, NinjaTrader 8. Now you can too. find a wide range of tutorials, tutorials and online video sites that will assist you along with free daily webinars hosted by their support team.
• Narrow Focus – Today’s traders are increasingly interested in the bitcoin and crypto markets. NinjaTrader offers charting and analysis with Coinbase data built directly into the platform, but order fulfillment is currently unavailable. For live trading, NinjaTrader is currently the best at serving futures, forex, stocks and CFDs.

Tools & Features of NinjaTrader

One of the first questions that many future traders will have concerns the trading tools and features on offer. Fortunately, platform and rating brokers report high levels of satisfaction with both.

Chart

In terms of charting capabilities, NinjaTrader scores well. Their comprehensive tools will compliment your trading ideas with user-friendly and highly customizable systems.

They provide:

• Visualize the market clearly and strongly
• Multi-timeframe plus multi-instrument analysis
• 100+ pre-built custom indicators, as well as hundreds of optional third-party indicator add-ons.

You can expect access to the following:

• Disparity Index
• News Index
• Trend Indicator
• Swing Indicator
• Variable volume
• Reversal Indicator
• Variable indicators
• Value Area Indicators
• Digital Indicators
• Elliott Wave Indicator
• Average Daily Range Index

Commercial Management

NinjaTrader’s SuperDOM order entry and transaction management system allows for advanced customization. You will benefit from the following:

• Simple commercial visualization
• Click, modify, plus cancel order entry
• It can also be used with the Advanced Commerce Management (ATM) module

Advanced Commerce Management

The NinjaTrader ATM module is a powerful selling point. Their sophisticated technology allows you to define individual trade management strategies in advance. Including:

• Multiple profit targets and stop loss orders
• Other One Cancellation (OCO) Orders
• Automatic breakeven stop
• Trailing loss

This can make you more profitable as it automatically sends in/out orders in milliseconds. Not to mention, it can reduce the time and stress of manually managing multiple exit orders in volatile markets.

Automation

Trading volume is increasingly represented by machine learning algorithms. This is because I have developed a consistently effective strategy, then automating it can increase your odds.

Once you have programmed according to your criteria, the algorithm/bot will enter and exit trades as soon as your criteria are met. This can allow you to make more trades than ever before.

NinjaTrader allows you to automate your trading strategy if it is developed using NinjaScript or if it is in an external application.

You likely:

• Develop and buy automated strategies
• Analyze and execute automated strategies
• Processing trading signals from external applications
• Create or purchase third-party custom charting indicators

Market Playback

NinjaTrader offers extremely useful market replay functionality. It loads historical data so you can rewind to a specific day and practice trading in that market as if it were active. This is great when developing a strategy, or capturing Fibonacci levels for example.

Other Analytics Tools

The NinjaTrader offering also extends to trade performance tools, plus strategic and market analysts. All of which can help enhance your day trading performance.

Also, the minimum system and hardware requirements for NinjaTrader are industry standard, so most people should be able to download the full versions of 7 and 8. Programming and coding tutorials are possible. found in their video library.

Overall, in terms of trading tools and features, you get a wide range of customizable charts and trading simulators. You also get an extensive data feed, indicator list, smart programmability, plus a reliable support forum.

The key to getting the most out of their offerings is spending time exploring their library of videos and educational offerings once you’ve signed in.

NinjaTrader Education

Getting started with a new platform can prove challenging. Fortunately, NinjaTrader offers a wide range of education and support activities to enhance your use of their trading software. They offer daily webinars, training videos, help guides, plus an active user community that you can turn to.

The above methods can help you:

• Quote
• Stock scanner
• Various Plugins
• Register data
• Order type and quantity
• Strategy Templates & instructions
• Broker and Funding Withdrawals
• Output window and limit stop command

However, if you still have unanswered questions, you can contact NinjaTrader via email or their support forum. They have a helpdesk of 20 NinjaTrader experts, set up to make sure you get the most out of their platform.

How to…

Many educational materials are available around frequently asked questions from traders. Mostly how to be successful, for example:

• How to set stop loss
• How to delete a strategy
• How to trade futures
• How to use Ninjatrader 9

…and many more.

These queries are usually answered live via webinar or video tutorials. The videos are about 2 or 3 minutes long and cover a very specific topic like charts or connection to the platform. Youtube channels also host videos, but they are exceptionally short.

Webinars last much longer and traders need to register, but they go into more detail and provide more depth.

Demo account

The NinjaTrader demo account is a great opportunity for beginners to familiarize themselves with both the markets and the trading platform. Plus, downloading their demo account software is simple.

Just go to their website and click on Trade Futures or Trade FX. Then scroll down and enter your information for a demo account. All you need is an email address and fill in your location. You will then be emailed your login details and steps to download their platform if you have not already done so.

Overall, the simulated commercial reviews say a lot about this service and it’s not hard to see why. Desired expanders can hone their craft on Heiken-Ashi charts, while gaining access to playback functions, market and volume profiles, and more.

Then, once you have built your confidence, you can open a live trading account, funded with real capital.

Price

When you register and log in with a demo account, you will also be sent information from the NinjaTrader broker. This will detail the exchange fees and other costs associated with their brokerage services.

The main costs are as follows:

• Minimum deposit for a futures trading account is $1,000.
• Minimum deposit for a forex trading account is $50.
• Intraday trading range of popular futures contracts like emini S & P500 is $500.
• Both Mini Dax and FTSE 100 futures have a range of $1000.
• You’ll find commissions starting at around $0.53 per contract. However, this will depend on whether you purchase the NinjaTrader platform or whether you rent or use the free version.
• Lifetime license for NinjaTrader will cost you $1099. Alternatively, you can pay four monthly payments of $329. It will cost $720 per year, $425 for six months, and $225 quarterly if you choose to rent.

Lifetime license for NinjaTrader will cost you $999. Alternatively, you can pay four monthly payments of $299. It will cost $600 per year, $330 for six months, and $180 quarterly if you choose to rent.

Also, it’s worth noting that if you choose to use the free version of NinjaTrader, the commission can be a bit higher.

NinjaTrader 7 vs NinjaTrader 8

The highly anticipated NinjaTrader 8 release. 8 system requirements are still the same as for 7, so if you have one you should be able to migrate to another system without too much hassle. You can use 8 on Mac or Windows.

The main improvements of 8 of the 500 changes include:

• Speed up
• Historical inquiry data
• Significant improvements
• Second market data time stamp
• Ability to add custom columns and indicators to SuperDOM

8 reviews show that customers are happy with many of the changes, however, if you don’t want to download the latest version, the full 7 version does the job just fine. In fact, many traders point out that much of your knowledge and experience of NinjaTrader 7 will be directly applied in 8 downloads.

NinjaTrader 8 tutorials, strategy builder and test guides can all be found by visiting their trading forum or training video library.

Also, it’s worth noting that, unfortunately, there’s no NT 8 portability.

Broker Compatible

NinjaTrader exists as a broker independent trading platform. However, there are a number of supported brokers from the UK and elsewhere. In fact, NinjaTrader holds a multi-broker license. This gives you, the trader, the choice of where you make your trades.

However, there is some risk of communication delays between some platforms. So, if you want a smooth transition from platform to broker, you may want to choose one of the brokers currently available through NinjaTrader Broker. They also support the majority of the leading independent market data service providers, such as Kinetrick.

Overall, you have a wide selection of forex and futures brokers where you can use your NinjaTrader software. In fact, you can choose from a number of internationally supported brokerage technologies, including:

• CQG
• FXCM
• MB Transaction
• TD Ameritrade
• Delete Corretora
• Oanda
• Interactive broker
• NinjaTrader Rithmic
• NinjaTrader Continuous
• GAIN capital / FOREX.com

NinjaTrader supports several additional market data providers, including:

• eSignal
• TradeStation
• yahoo finance
• Import Metastock
• IQFeed from DTN Telvent
• Text entry based on text files

See their broker website for a complete list of instruments, including stocks, forex and futures.

NinjaTrader Customer Service

In the game of day trading, every second costs money. So you don’t want to sit for hours waiting for NinjaTrader to fix technical problems or account problems. Luckily, they offer 24/5 tech support, plus 24/7 emergency business support in several languages, so no matter your time zone, someone is around.

You can expect to get help with the following:

• Set up alerts
• Get your account balance
• Make sure you understand the price
• How to stop loss and get currency rate
• Initial margin requirement and daily loss limit
• Towards strategy builders and their examples
• Find tick charts and automated trading strategies
• Information on public holidays and calendar days
• Understand license and leverage conditions, including intraday margin requirements and inactivity fees

While you can get technical and brokerage support in the hours you need it, NinjaTrader doesn’t have a live chat service function, which can speed up remediation. Overall, emails are answered promptly and their support is industry standard.

For commercial emergency phone numbers where you are, see their website.

Problems with connectivity or the system not booting can often be initially tracked on the Support forum, which is a great resource. Any downtime (scheduled or otherwise) will be reported there first.

Last word

If you are looking for powerful software and market data, NinjaTrader might well be worth exploring. Having said that, the program can take a few weeks to get used to, especially for beginners. While they lack a native iPhone or iPad app or an Android equivalent, if you use the NinjaTrader broker, you can access your account on the go using CQG Desktop.

Overall, you get an active trading community, a wide range of educational resources and a high degree of customization. All of these can enhance your trading performance and increase your profits during the day which is very important If choosing a NinjaTrader Broker, low margins and commissions can also be beneficial to keep costs low.

Accepted countries

NinjaTrader only accepts traders from USA, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Nigeria, Poland, Portugal, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Tokelau, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Belgium, Brazil, United Kingdom, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Egypt, France, Switzerland, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Bolivia , Colombia.

Frequently Asked Questions