# NinjaTrader Mechanical Systems & Automation



## waza1960 (4 April 2010)

I'm starting a thread on this subject because I think there are compelling reasons to use Ninja trader to design mechanical systems.
   Firstly you can design backtest and optimise FX systems for zero cost
except for internet fees and ancillary costs.
It is possible to design systems with very limited programming ability using the
Stategy Wizard.
 If you are interested in Mechanical Systems and ultimately Automated trading
 I can't think of a better way to go.
I don't have a lot of experience with MT4 so I will be interested to hear from 
posters regarding comparisons etc .


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## waza1960 (3 May 2010)

Not much interest so far................................
Maybe some results will stimulate some interest........................
Heres a system I have created with the Ninja Strategy Wizard .


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## Wysiwyg (3 May 2010)

Hi. What was it tested on please?


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## waza1960 (4 May 2010)

> Hi. What was it tested on please?



      The system is on AUD-JPY 60min it has being optimised specifically for this pair but works on other pairs.
     It consists of  an EMA Xover ,1 Indicator and a couple of filters .


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## >Apocalypto< (4 May 2010)

waza1960 said:


> The system is on AUD-JPY 60min it has being optimised specifically for this pair but works on other pairs.
> It consists of  an EMA Xover ,1 Indicator and a couple of filters .




That's a back test right? I will be interested to see how it performs live for the next 6 - 12 months. 

updates us month to month along the way live wazza.


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## waza1960 (4 May 2010)

> That's a back test right? I will be interested to see how it performs live for the next 6 - 12 months.
> 
> updates us month to month along the way live wazza.



Correct that was a backtest report.I will give you updates . I have 10 systems in simulation using a VPS in the 70% range of Profits/wins and less than 3 stop outs in a row which are not quite as good as this one.  I'm intending to go live within a few weeks with systems that have a minimum of 80% profit/wins .


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## professor_frink (4 May 2010)

good to see you making progress waza. Congrats


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## >Apocalypto< (4 May 2010)

waza1960 said:


> Correct that was a backtest report.I will give you updates . I have 10 systems in simulation using a VPS in the 70% range of Profits/wins and less than 3 stop outs in a row which are not quite as good as this one.  I'm intending to go live within a few weeks with systems that have a minimum of 80% profit/wins .




Well, nice results on the back test. hope the live trading is a replica of your back tests.

all the best with it, look forwad to reading your updates.


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## waza1960 (4 May 2010)

Thanks for the support.
I don't expect live results to be as good as long as I can make a profit however small and build on that.


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## Wysiwyg (4 May 2010)

waza1960 said:


> The system is on AUD-JPY 60min it has being optimised specifically for this pair but works on other pairs.
> It consists of  an EMA Xover ,1 Indicator and a couple of filters .



I have seen that flat markets trigger moving average crosses more often thus creating false signals. I suppose your filters address this issue?


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## Twiddle (4 May 2010)

Ninja trader looks very interesting.

How much do you pay per month in fees for data feeds etc? 

I am a beginner so I am not looking to spend much while I am in the information collecting/familiarisation stage.


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## ThingyMajiggy (4 May 2010)

Twiddle said:


> Ninja trader looks very interesting.
> 
> How much do you pay per month in fees for data feeds etc?
> 
> I am a beginner so I am not looking to spend much while I am in the information collecting/familiarisation stage.




Have a look at the NT website, plenty of info there. 

Depends entirely on which data feed you choose(thats if you choose a data feed, NT can plug directly into some brokerages data too) and what markets you subscribe to on that data feed, each data provider will have a website with the costs. 

http://www.ninjatrader.com/webnew/trading_software_brokers_data.htm


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## >Apocalypto< (4 May 2010)

Twiddle said:


> Ninja trader looks very interesting.
> 
> How much do you pay per month in fees for data feeds etc?
> 
> I am a beginner so I am not looking to spend much while I am in the information collecting/familiarisation stage.




you can use Ninja Trader the pakage for free or you can buy it to access the full features it offers.

as Sam said check ou the site.

Cheers


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## waza1960 (4 May 2010)

> Ninja trader looks very interesting.
> 
> How much do you pay per month in fees for data feeds etc?
> 
> I am a beginner so I am not looking to spend much while I am in the information collecting/familiarisation stage.



If you use the Gain FX feed .
 Data is free and ninja is free,Simulation is free, Trading live is free.


> you can use Ninja Trader the pakage for free or you can buy it to access the full features it offers.
> 
> as Sam said check ou the site



 The only extra features that I am aware of in the paid version is the ability to have multiple feeds/Brokers operating at the same time. And if you trade eminis or with some other brokers you have to pay a life time or monthly fee.
I also find it a little difficult sometimes to find the information that I'm looking for on the site .
Actually when I said  Ninja is  free I believe that if you trade live FX Ninja receive a small % of the spread off Gain.


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## waza1960 (4 May 2010)

> I have seen that flat markets trigger moving average crosses more often thus creating false signals. I suppose your filters address this issue?



             Well one filter does address  this problem .The other filter I use is TIME . I have a process for filtering Trades by eliminating certain times of the day.


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## Wysiwyg (4 May 2010)

Anyone tried trading directly from the charts? Like place orders on the chart.
If so is the execution instant or lagging and do you find it "easier" to trade.

Also what is the base currency for the account? If USD how do you feel about that? Are there EOY tax implications or a simple account conversion to AUD on the 30th June? 




waza1960 said:


> Well one filter does address  this problem .The other filter I use is TIME . I havcatios or is iy a process for filtering Trades by eliminating certain times of the day.



 That's the shot.


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## waza1960 (4 May 2010)

> Also what is the base currency for the account? If USD how do you feel about that? Are there EOY tax implications or a simple account conversion to AUD on the 30th June?



 Base Currency is USD.
I don't care about the other details yet after chasing my tail for years following fundamentals,Reports and all the other crap all I want to do is make a small profit consistantly and I think I'm close to that.
I'm totally focussed on the Automated trading aspect of Ninja and Strategy development .
 BTW I think Amibroker is ultimately the best system design platform (I already own a copy and have played with it) and I think I will move on to it after I have mastered Ninja .
IMO Ninja is still a cheaper and quicker initial path to system development and hopefully making money without the need to learn detailed code .


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## Mistagear (5 May 2010)

Wysiwyg said:


> Anyone tried trading directly from the charts? Like place orders on the chart.
> If so is the execution instant or lagging and do you find it "easier" to trade.




I have been trading by placing orders direct to the chart rather than use the DOM for the last 18mths. Have occasionally had issues with lag but was not confined to trading off the chart, the DOM was also lagging at the time.
The problem was related to my equipment speed, not the platform, and have not had problems since the extreme volatility days of the GFC.

I do prefer to trade directly from the chart, am scalping the Emini market using VSA system set-ups and find it easier to identify entry points on the chart rther than from the DOM. Once set, I move my targets to suit, again by changing directly on the chart. 

Cheers, M


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## Twiddle (20 May 2010)

Is there any way to get historical data for free, that can be imported into ninja trader?


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## ThingyMajiggy (20 May 2010)

Twiddle said:


> Is there any way to get historical data for free, that can be imported into ninja trader?




Account connections > ADD >  Provider:Yahoo


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## Twiddle (20 May 2010)

ThingyMajiggy said:


> Account connections > ADD >  Provider:Yahoo




Thanks for that. 

I am looking for a way to import historical data so I can backtest some systems.

I am very new to this so any pointers in the right direction would be appreciated.


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## waza1960 (22 May 2010)

> Account connections > ADD > Provider:Gain



  You can also use the above to get Gain Fx data but you need to select the Ninja Servers option for Historical data.


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## MACD (22 May 2010)

For the best place to find all indicators, systems, data etc, check out this website:   http://forum.bigmiketrading.com/

It will save you thousands of dollars on indicators and systems.  The members are really friendly and helpful.


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## waza1960 (22 May 2010)

> For the best place to find all indicators, systems, data etc, check out this website: http://forum.bigmiketrading.com/
> 
> It will save you thousands of dollars on indicators and systems. The members are really friendly and helpful



  Good tip MACD I joined their forum a few days ago they are really helpful .


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## investedz (1 July 2010)

Hi guys,

I've recently been introduced to Forex along with Ninjatrader, and I'm impressed at both the live trading and the systems development of it. I've done a bit of programming on MetaTrader 4, but still not enough to be able to compare it to Ninjascript.

At the moment I've stuck with NT because I was trying to make a strategy that looks at different FX pairs. However later I found that there is a way to do this in MT4.

For the coders, NT has c# syntax, while MT4 is c++. Both allow for object oriented programming. There is also a way for either to interact with Matlab if you want to add advanced algorithmic calculation to your strategy. Its been said that its a bit harder to code in NT, but I'm starting to get the hang of it, and I'm a pretty rusty programmer.

Regarding the live trading, NT is the first platform I've come across with the 'Dom' tool, and I find it very clever. Very good for quick intraday trading 'ninja' style (no pun intended).

I think I heard somewhere that in NT the stops are kept in your local system, as opposed to the stop being sent to your broker when you open your trade. Not sure about MT4. Can someone confirm this?


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## supermatt (2 July 2010)

I have watched a few ninjatrader training webinars and thats what they say. stops are kept on ninjatrader and are not sent to your broker. I think more specifically the kind of stop losses that were only kept on ninja were the complicated order types , i cant remember what they are called but something about entering a limit order and you want it triggered when your stop loss gets hit, something along those lines.


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## MACD (2 July 2010)

I thought that stops sit with the broker!

Here is the answer from the Ninja website:

It depends on your broker - 

http://www.ninjatrader.com/support/forum/showthread.php?t=5349

Generally it resides at the exchange.


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## waza1960 (5 July 2010)

> That's a back test right? I will be interested to see how it performs live for the next 6 - 12 months.
> 
> updates us month to month along the way live wazza.



Here's my first Live update of running my systems live.
Not too great to start with the system circled is the one in question.
I've had a loss of $672.00 running my 10 strategies for the last 6 weeks.
I've removed three systems which exceeded their designed number of stop outs. I'm still happy to run the systems as designed and looking forward to an improvement.


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## Wysiwyg (5 July 2010)

Evening waza, 
Were the Time Series Forecast and Trix strategies using crossovers with a Moving Average as trigger on a minute/s time frame? 
You are looking for an improvement and I assume you mean because your Ninja backtesting showed a positive return with X number of consecutive losses? Hence sticking with them through the drawdown phase?


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## waza1960 (5 July 2010)

> Were the Time Series Forecast and Trix strategies using crossovers with a Moving Average as trigger on a minute/s time frame



The TSF system is as you described the Trix is a totally different approach both on 60min.


> You are looking for an improvement and I assume you mean because your Ninja backtesting showed a positive return with X number of consecutive losses? Hence sticking with them through the drawdown phase?



Correct all my systems have no more than 2 consecutive losses in a row backtested over two years except for the EURCHF TSF1 which I removed had 3 in a row.
I was unfortunate to have a drawdown phase in the first 2 weeks of trading live(8 losses in a row)
 However I had experienced a similar drawdown in simulation so no reason to panic


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