Realtime data

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Hello Sepp,

Historical tick data is not supported with IB. Real-time tick data is supported.

Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done.

[MasterSepp]

But what do I have to do to get the real data in NT? Change the broker/data vendor?

Regards,

Sepp

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

You can connect to an additional supported data feed provider such as eSignal, IQFeed or BarChart first and connect to IB second.

NinjaTrader will retrieve data from the first connection.

[MasterSepp]

Ok, thank you. Do you know by the way, which one is the cheapest? Because I only need (accurate) realtime and historical data.

Regards,

Sepp

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Hello Sepp,

I believe BarChart is the cheapest of the three, but I am not sure.

Perhaps it is best to contact the providers and check what prices they use.

[MasterSepp]

Ok, I'm back with still the same problem.
The situation goes like this: I subscribed the original data stream from the exchange itself, which gives me (obviously) the absolutely correct prices. Then I subscribed to Barchart for tick-by-tick data and connected NT with Barchart. But there is still the problem: without reloading the historical data, the chart in NT is different from the exchange chart! I've observed the price changes a while and I think, it has to be the failure of NT. The data seems to be right, although the price from Barchart changes normally BEFORE the price on the exchange changes... but because there are only milliseconds between, I don't bother. Now I compared the two charts to each other. NT seems to have a problem with updating the chart constantly. When the price only changes about 1 point and stays again there for a while, NT doesn't have any problems to follow. But if it comes like 1 point down, then again immediately 1 point down, afterwards 3 points up, NT has often problems to follow, which means that the changed price is only displayed on NT after up to 2 seconds. Imagine that just before the close of a bar and it would be the answer, why NT shows another chart then the exchange. But because I'm not quite sure, I wanted to ask here.
I hope you could follow me. To make the whole story short: is it normal, that the NT chart displays the price delayed and therefore can get different open/close prices then in reality? And if so, how can I change this? Because I can't imagine that you tell me, that I have to live with an error like this, which ruins my whole trading system - and the ones of others as well... But probably, I'm just doing wrong.

Regards,

Sepp

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Hello Sepp,

Can you please double click the chart and check what value is used for 'Display update interval (sec)'.

Make sure you are connected to a high speed internet connection.
In addition, does it make a difference if you reduce resource request of NinjaTrader; only have one chart in NinjaTrader opened without anything else?

Note that different data feeds can cause differences.

http://www.ninjatrader-support.com/HelpGuideV6/HowDoesNinjaTraderBuildChartBars.html

Different Data Feeds
Different data feeds produce different charts especially when using tick based intervals vs time based intervals. Market data vendors each employ various methods for tick filtering, throttling and time stamping. As a result, no data stream is 100% identical and thus can cause subtle differences in charts. Since NinjaTrader supports many of the leading brokerage and data feed technologies, its guaranteed that two traders using NinjaTrader on different data feeds will have minor differences when plotting the same market and time interval.

[MasterSepp]

Ah, the updating interval could be the solution! Was set on 0.5 secs before (far too high!). I've set it now on 0, which means tick-by-tick. Will observe it now again carefully. Ironically, the NT chart is now more "sensitive" then the exchange chart - often shows price changes, which don't get displayed on the exchange chart. Have to look, if this has an effect on the chart or not. Will post again later.
Thank you for your help so far.

Regards,

Sepp

[MasterSepp]

Hmm... it's still the same. Most of the bars are correct but then there are always some bars, where the open is 1 point too high or the close it 1 point too low... I could really just imagine, that it's because of a delaying of the chart... but how could you negate this?

Regards,

Sepp

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Hello Sepp,

It could be related to how NinjaTrader builds its bars as well.

http://www.ninjatrader-support.com/HelpGuideV6/HowDoesNinjaTraderBuildChartBars.html

Bar Time Stamp
NinjaTrader stamps a bar with the closing time of the bar. For example, a minute bar with a time of 9:31:00 AM has data from 9:30:00 AM through 9:30:59 AM.

Could it be the exchange chart time stamps its bars different, so the bar contains different ticks compared to the bar displayed in NinjaTrader?

[MasterSepp]

I don't think so. That's also why I subscribed to Barchart, because they offer tick-by-tick data, which should solve the problem. But I realized now, that the whole historical data provided by barchart is even after reloading completely wrong. Wrote to the support and have to look how I get this fixed. Then I check again, and hopefully the problem solved itself...

Regards,

Sepp

[MasterSepp]

Ok, I think that I now figured the problem. Because I can't set my computer clock manually to the exact milliseconds of the exchange clock, the bar gets opened about half a second before. If there is a price change during this time, this will be noticed in NT in the new bar, while it is originally in the old bar of the exchange chart.
I asked the exchange, if there is a clock I could sync my computer with, but they said no.
I really have no idea. How is it possible to receive the right realtime data with IB / right data in the whole with barchart? I can't imagine, that all the other IB/Barchart user have this problem as well... What am I doing wrong?

Regards,

Sepp

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Hello Sepp,

I see. Unfortunately, milliseconds are not supported in the software either.

http://www.ninjatrader-support2.com/vb/showthread.php?t=18550&highlight=milli

[MasterSepp]

Hmm I don't think that this is what I want. Let me try again:
I'm connected to IB. Loading the historical data works without problems and is always true. But while I'm connected to IB and looking on the realtime chart (5 min bars), it often happens, that the price change in the last half second is noticed in the new bar, although it should be in the old bar. This half second is highly probably cause due to my computer clock, which I had manually sync to the exchange clock and which is therefore offset less than a second. Also, the exchange doesn't open a new bar always on the same milliseconds, where NT does. This causes, that some price changes are wrong displayed on NT, because the exchange "hesitated" with opening a new bar.
Now I wanted to know, if there is any possibility to adjust my computer clock to the exchange. If not, I'd propose that you would try to make NT independant from the computer clock, but let the charts build based on the clock from the exchange. This would be very helpful, because actually this half a second offset ruins every strategy, no matter if it's based on 5 min bars or 2 hour bars. And this gets VERY frustrating!

Regards,

Sepp

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Hello Sepp,

Unfortunately I am not aware of a method to set your PC clock to milli seconds.

I will forward your suggestion to base charts on the exchange clock with IB to our development team and ask them if they can add this to the list of future considerations for the software.