Infinite margin?

[hondac55]

I'm really not sure where to post about this to get help with it, but I have a couple of concerns and can't find good answers. I used Ninja a long time ago, and I remember the simulator being very accurate, fun, and easy to use, but now it seems very convoluted, inaccurate, and unnecessarily difficult to understand. As an example, some things have helpful tooltips, like if you go to Edit Account and hover over the currency denomination, it drops down "US Dollar", even though it's already displayed on the screen...yet if I wanted to find out what forex lot size means, I have to go to Google. The tooltips are pretty consistently bad in that type of way, and I just don't remember it being that way back when I used it which is disappointing.

The other thing I really struggle with is understand how this simulation account is...well, simulated. If I want to trade bitcoin, I can go ahead and place an order for 1 million shares...a trade which is valued at $7,292,510,000. And then if bitcoin drops, I can sell off 1 million shares and there doesn't seem to be any repercussion or noticeable loss for it. The same is true the other way around, if I profit $200 million in a trade, my cash value is still $10,000, my buying power is still $0.00.

I discovered this little trick after I accidentally bought too many shares in LTC and expected an error, but it instead went through. So I figured some kind of margin must be in place but I can't find any information about that. Anyways, I'm just wondering why my PnL is just over $5,000,000 but my cash value is still $10,000, and also why am I able to buy 1 million shares of a $7,000 stock? Is there a way to change this? I've been through every screen in the program and there doesn't seem to be an easy fix to this other than limiting my order size, which is no help if I'm switching between a stock which is over $7,000/share and another which is just under $50/share.

[NinjaTrader_PatrickG]

I am not aware that anything specifically has changes regarding tool tips in the platform. 'Tool tips' aren't really tips in the example you provided. In general, this mouse-over display is meant to provide the full text of a drop down list. So, for example, if your window was too narrow to show the entire phrase, you would be able to see if by mousing over. Here is an example:

• https://www.screencast.com/t/3TjtOL5oytPt

Could you go into further detail about what occurred previously? Could you elaborate what information you'd prefer to see in this specific case? No tool tip I imagine?

What version of NinjaTrader 8 are you using? Please provide the entire version number. This can be found under Help -> About (Example: 8.0.?.?)

Who are you connected to? This is displayed in green on lower left corner of the Control Center window.

[hondac55]

Certainly, I'm using version 8.0.20.1 64-bit and I'm connected to My Coinbase.

As for the tooltips, I'm sure it's just my memory failing me but I seem to remember there being much more user-friendly information in the tooltips. As an example, earlier I was trying to figure out what TIF stood for in the dynamic SuperDOM interface and it helpfully informed me of what it was - but when I was trying to create a custom ATM Strategy, I was wondering what "MIT for profit" meant, and there's no tooltip to help here. It's also worth mentioning that if I hover over TIF in the ATM Strategy window, the same tooltip which exists in SuperDOM doesn't drop down. It feels inconsistent, and I like SuperDOM as a visual aid but I can't use it to trade like I do with my charts, so I spend much more time in my charts and rarely glance at my SuperDOM just to see when I'm close to hitting my stop loss or something like that.

But I'd really like to know why my cash value, intraday margin, and excess initial margin seem to be static. I can work with my gross realized PnL which is functioning, as well as realized, unrealized, and total PnL, it'd just help with realism if my buying power and cash value actually had an effect on how many shares I can play with.

[NinjaTrader_PatrickG]

The design for these educational tool tips are basically that if its more than a very brief statement (or just the spelling out of an acronym), it should be in the help guide. I agree that there do seem to be some inconsistencies. The internal tracking number for your feature request is SFT-4517. Please reference this internal tracking number if you ever have questions regarding this feature request.

You may find that using the F1 key on your keyboard in these situations gets you the info you need. The F1 key will open the relevant help guide link for the window you were using in NinjaTrader. Here is the relevant page for the 'More' section of an ATM strategy:

• https://ninjatrader.com/support/help...ed_options.htm

When I trade BTCUSD using Coinbase, I see that my PnL is affected at the expected tick value when I gain or lose from my original entry. In the screenshot below, I've entered 1000 quantity and see the appropriate PnL:

https://www.screencast.com/t/2EtEiOHaHa

Notice that my excess margin fields do update, however, I agree that cash value isn't updating as one would expect. Trading cryprocurrency isn't fully supported in NinjaTrader. For example, you cannot trade less than 1 but this would be critical for trading cryptocurrencies. The internal tracking number for your feature request is SFT-2334. Please reference this internal tracking number if you ever have questions regarding this feature request.

When a feature request is implemented, you'll find it in the release notes:

http://ninjatrader.com/support/helpG...ease_notes.htm

[hondac55]

I wasn't aware of the F1 shortcut, thank you.

I hope to see cryptos supported further as I've found it much easier to make money on these, but there aren't many good platforms to trade it on at the moment. Definitely an unexplored market.

Thank you for your help today, Patrick.