NinjaTrader Review – How Does This Platform Stack Up?

About NinjaTrader

If you trade stocks, forex, or futures contracts, you may want to consider the NinjaTrader platform. NinjaTrader has been in business since 2003 and now offers both a platform and a brokerage. Today, we will be focused primarily on the NinjaTrader platform. It has a lot of competitive features that other software programs have, such as advanced charting and Level II quotes. Let’s take a detailed look at it.

NinjaTrader Pricing

NinjaTrader is free if you want to use it solely for strategy backtesting, charting, or trade simulation. With a funded account at NinjaTrader Brokerage, you also get market analysis at no cost. To actually trade investment vehicles, however, the software comes with fees.

An annual lease of the platforms is $600. Dropping down to semi-annual costs $330, and a quarterly subscription is $180. The last one auto-renews. You can buy the program outright for $999 or four payments of $299 each.

Leasing the software comes with fewer features. For example, there is no volume profile indicator, market depth map, volumetric bars, trade detector, cumulative delta, or VWAP with deviation.

If you want to trade stocks on the NinjaTrader platform, you need to open an account with another brokerage firm, like Interactive Brokers or TD Ameritrade. For currencies and futures, you can use NinjaTrader Brokerage if you wish, or some other firm.

Market data on NinjaTrader comes with various charges, depending on the feed. CME Bitcoin costs $7 per month, while data from Dow Jones costs $6. If you decide to trade futures or forex with NinjaTrader Brokerage, there are some good rates available. Futures contracts are 53¢ per side, while currencies have spreads below 2.0.

NinjaTrader Features

When I opened NinjaTrader for the first time, I was disappointed that there were no pre-populated trading windows. I had to go to the top menu and start adding them. This isn’t too much trouble, but it would be nice for some tools to already be there. Speaking of tools, here are some examples:

Charts

I was very impressed with NinjaTrader’s charting capability. A graph can be shown as candlesticks, a point & figure chart, OHLC bars (with HLC and HiLo variations), candlesticks, kagi line, mountain, open/close, and line on close. One feature that I found very impressive was the ability to alter the width of bars and the spacing between them.

The cursor can be turned off or set to crosshair mode. Orders that get filled are shown at the exact time on a chart along with the fill price and the quantity.

I was even more impressed with the program’s selection of drawing tools. I counted no less than 30 of them. Available choices include Fibonacci retracements, Andrew’s pitchfork, ellipses, and diamond markers.

Technical Indicators

Technical studies weren’t forgotten, either. Besides standard indicators like Bollinger Bands, there are exotics such as Buy sell pressure, Money flow oscillator, and OBV. What I especially liked was the ability to change the colors of the indicator lines.  

Level 2

NinjaTrader incorporates a Level II data box. To find it, just go to ‘New’ in the top menu and select ‘Level II’ from the drop-down menu. At first, it will just be an empty box. I had to look in the user’s manual to figure out that you have to right-click in the window and then select ‘Instruments’ from the list and then select the stock, currency pair, or futures contract you want.

News

The primary menu option that you’ll be using is the ‘New’ category. Under this heading, you’ll find many tools, including the news app. Selecting this option will produce a discrete window with rows of news articles with their headlines, time of publication, and source. They are searchable.

Scanners

I was disappointed during my testing of NinjaTrader not to find a stock scanner. Traders would have to use another scanner like EquityFeed, Trade Ideas, or FinViz.

Order Entry

I was much more impressed with the software’s order entry ticket. Besides buy and sell buttons, there are also buy or sell at the ask or bid price. Clicking on buy or sell ‘Mkt’ will automatically produce a buy order even if the type is specified as limit. Stop orders are available. When an order gets filled a nice AI voice lets you know.

Alerts

I was able to find NinjaTrader’s alerts by going to ‘Market Analyzer’ under the ‘New’ menu and then right-clicking in the window and selecting ‘Alerts’. Here, it’s possible to set up a variety of notifications that can be triggered by many different events.

Watch Lists

A list of financial instruments can be created in the Market Analyzer window. These can include currency pairs, futures contracts, and stocks. There are several column options, such as average daily volume, calendar year high, and bid-ask spread.

NinjaScript Add-On

If you don’t find what you’re looking for within the default platform, there’s a really nice feature called NinjaScript Add-On. Using this, you can add your own gadgets and tools for an additional fee. The ones we found were technical studies.

Customization and Saved Layouts

I really liked the level of customization in NinjaTrader. Colors of charts, tools, and indicators can all be adjusted. A custom-built layout is automatically saved on logout.

Compatible Brokers

NinjaTrader can be used with TD Ameritrade, FXCM, Interactive Brokers, MB Trading, Forex.com, OANDA, and City Index.

Platform Differentiators

Using NinjaTrader at Interactive Brokers or TD Ameritade makes no sense because both brokers have free platforms that are very good. NinjaTrader has similar features as DAS Trader Pro and is easier to use than TradeStation’s desktop system.

What Type of Trader NinjaTrader Is Best For

Because a lot of platforms can’t be used for currencies and futures, NinjaTrader would be great for investors interested in those products. The software is also free when used at NinjaTrader Brokerage for these products.

Pros

• A large selection of add-ons.
• Easy to learn.
• A strategy analyzer is integrated and it can run historical analysis on trading strategies.

Cons

• It’s expensive to trade stocks.
• No options trading.