update commission templates

[patricia70]

Dear all,

since my beginning of NT8 under [Tools] --> [Commissions] I realized that the shown values for NinjaTrader Brokerage (Direct/Lease/Lifetime) all of them were not correct because outdated. I compared various instruments from that list agains the latest commission list here:

https://ninjatrader.com/PDF/ninjatrader_futures_commissions.pdf

Those Ninjatrader8 default templates lists lower values which negatively will affect the trading performance when commission template is in use.

Example:

Ninjatraders'8 commission template "NinjaTrader Brokerage Lifetime" is showing following values
Instrument: "ES" --> Per-unit commision: "1,94"
Instrument: "6E" --> Per-unit commision: "2,31"
Instrument: "GC" --> Per-unit commision: "2,26"

although the real commission according ninjatrader_futures_commissions.pdf says
Instrument: "ES" --> Per-unit commision: "1,99"
Instrument: "6E" --> Per-unit commision: "2,36"
Instrument: "GC" --> Per-unit commision: "2,31"

The attentive reader will have noticed that they differ in $0.05 disadvantegeous for the trader.

That caused me to copy from the data the faulty default template "NinjaTrader Brokerage Lifetime" --> to a new created template --> "My NTB Lifetime template" and in advance correct all the instruments which I'm interested in. It was time consuming to fulfill this task because I had to toggle between the mentioned URL/PDF and the NT8 template to enter the correct values by search and replace manually.

Nevertheless, just some minutes ago I stumbled over the menu point in NT8 --> Tools --> Database Management --> Update commission templates. Default check mark in "Predefined commission templates" is set, and "Remove user added commission templates" unset, I click on [UPDATE] button. I thought "Hey cool! didn't know there's such an option. I could have done this before and there you go ..." But --> this function does not seem to work, it looks faulty to me. It updates and writes values into the three default NinjaTrader Brokerage templates but again with the old faulty values. They are not correct and do not reflect the real commissions from Ninjatraders' commission pdf.

Why ? am I missing anything? Why doesn't Ninjatrader provide the correct values for their customers?

looking forward to some helpful replys.
Thank you.

[NinjaTrader_Marco]

Hello,

Thanks for your post.

The default template may not be the actual commissions you are set to receive as there are some factors that can determine the commissions applied to your specific account.

You'd want to edit your commissions template to reflect the actual commissions you are receiving with your account.

Please let me know if I may be of any further assistance.

[patricia70]

Dear Marco,

I appreciate your time taken for replying to this thread.
You said:

The default template may not be the actual commissions you are set to receive as there are some factors that can determine the commissions applied to your specific account.

can you be more specific, give us some example. The FCM clears exactly as he should and exactly what the PDF shows.

As I'm a standard NTB Lifetime member I would expect to have the NTB Lifetime fees/commissions as shown here:
https://ninjatrader.com/PDF/ninjatra...ommissions.pdf

My FCM is clearing exactly with those commissions, everything double-checked. So the problem still is not answered correctly. As a NT customer one would expect to get correct templates when "Updating" them. As a client of "NinjaTrader Brokerage Lifetime" I fall into the tab "Lifetime", see following screenshot:


I expect to get the template updated with the correct values. This is not the case here.

[NinjaTrader_Marco]

Hello,

Thank you for your post.

Can you please email to platformsupport[AT]ninjatrader[DOT]com with "2771054 ATTN Marco G" in the subject line and a link to this forum post in the message body so I may investigate this matter further?


Thanks in advance; I look forward to resolving this item for you.

[patricia70]

This isn't something customer related because it happens to my husband and one friend of us as well. All three have the same experience.

[NinjaTrader_Marco]

Hello,

Thanks for your reply.

I'd like to check into your specific account and regarding this and see why you have the specific commissions you are seeing vs what is the default in the platform and would ask you to send this email instead to avoid this information being publicly viewable on the forum.

I look forward to your reply.

[patricia70]

thanks for your reply but again: this is nothing related to a certain account. You can try this for your own and check the log and trace file. Modify some lines in the default template "NinjaTrader Brokerage" to garbage like 9,99 or 0,01 just remember which instrument you made the change at. Then click on Tools --> Database Management --> Commission template --> UPDATE and you will see both in GUI and logs how Ninjatrader8 platform is receiving the updated template. Then look into the commission template and you will see how your values of instrument are not 9,99 or 0,01 anymore but replaced with the default value as Ninjatrader8 default template. But the value is not correct and does NOT reflect the "real" commission fees as shown in NTB brokerage PDF file I mentioned before.

[NinjaTrader_RyanS]

Hello,

The default values are a guideline, not an accurate representation of the actual commissions on your individual accounts. Clients may have different commission rates due to many factors, so if your specific account has different values than what is the default, you will need to make the adjustments to reflect your account's commission values.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

[patricia70]

Hello Ryan. I appreciate your effort and the attempt to give an answer to this, but one thing has not much in common with the other. Specially tailored customer agreements are not part of this topic.

This is a very simple matter and nothing complicated at all. Both the platform and your brokerage offers three models, these are:

Ninjatrader Brokerage Free/Direct
Ninjatrader Brokerage Lease
Ninjatrader Brokerage Lifetime


In my particular case I refer to the "Lifetime" license but the same is true for the other two variants.

The Ninjatrader8 platform shows for the default template "Lifetime" and instrument 6E = 2.31
The Ninjatrader Brokerage commission/fee table shows for "Lifetime" and instrument 6E = 2.36

If I as a customer of the Brokerage Lifetime model click on the button "Update" and tell the platform "get me the current fee list of Ninjatrader", then I expect the values to be accurate and not filled with any fantasy values. After all it is about an important function, which is supposed to represent the performance range of the platform.

The Ninjatrader help file for that particular function clearly says:

Update commissions templates

Update Commissions Templates This will replace and update all commissions templates to current server definitions.

So I cannot accept a statement like "this is only an approximate statement". Especially not in this segment of trading. I would accept an answer like "There is currently a technical problem in our server-side definition for this fee list, so I will report this and take care of updating the server-stored templates". A clumsy answer like

The default values are a guideline, not an accurate representation of the actual commissions on your individual accounts.

is therefore unacceptable. Don't blame the customer or Foo Bar for something like that.

Thanks for your understanding and listening.

[NinjaTrader_RyanS]

Hello,

Unfortunately at this time we don't have all possible commission templates loaded to the platform. I appreciate this feedback on the matter and will note this for our product team.

Please let me know if I may assist further.

[patricia70]

The content, i.e. to update the values on the server definition would take 15 minutes at most per template. For your 3 templates this would be less than 1h. This would be in the interest of all and surely all customers would be happy about that. Especially because they would get accurate and real values that reflect reality.

Also if another topic, but with the risk template it works at least, there is no problem.Click on Tools --> Risk and you will get accurate values for the default risk template called "NinjaTrader Brokerage Default" which is up-to-date on your server and reflect reality. Thus the Ninjatrader8 platform downloads the data from your server and is accurate and like one would expect.

NinjaTrader Margins:

https://ninjatrader.com/de/PDF/ninjatrader_futures_contract_details.pdf

So I would appreciate it very much if this request is passed on so that NinjaTrader can update the server definition.
Thanks again for your patience, understanding and support.

[patricia70]

It is frustrating to learn once again that the "Commission Update" function in the latest NT8 version still does not work reliably and is therefore absolutely useless !

On 01st February 2021 there was an increase of micro products at CME, Ninjatrader mentioned that also in the newsletter here.





This increase was reflected in Ninjatrader commission PDF (https://ninjatrader.com/PDF/ninjatra...ommissions.pdf), screenshot 01/Feb/2021:


Now click on [Control Center] --> [Tools] --> [Database Management] --> "Update commission templates" --> check only the first option "Predefined commission templates" and then click the [UPDATE] button. Go ahead and click [Tools] --> [Commissions] and compare the values with the latest ninjatrader_futures_commissions.pdf

What do you realize? They do NOT MATCH. Some are ok, lot of other are not. And those that are wrong are, of course, to the detriment of the customer.

Moreover, this results in the following problem: it falsifies the whole balance adversely when calling the trade performance, for example. Even if one would adjust/correct the commissions manually, the change is not reflected on past trades, i.e. the trade performance remains wrong as it was calculated based on the wrongly calculated commissions.

This is fatal and should not be!

But what frustrates me the most is the fact that Ninjatrader does not admit and accept this obvious bug, but instead tries to deflect from it. The same is true for updating the risk templates or other templates.

See also complaints from other customers about the exact same bug HERE or HERE .

PLEASE ! file this as a bug with high priority and fix it as soon as possible.

[NinjaTrader_RyanS]

Hello,

Commissions and risk settings on your account are entirely determined by your broker, and the templates in the platform are just that, templates. These should be used/edited to fit your specific account settings to match as closely as possible within the platform. That being said, your broker's statement will be the most accurate report for your account.

[patricia70]

Thank you for your reply and I appreciate your attempt at support. However, this answer seems very casual to me and does not address the actual problem we are complaining about. As MarianApalaghiei said in his thread:

I find it unacceptable to be the one having to manually manage every single commission value. This makes me lose any trust in the Update feature. I will basically never be sure that I actually have the latest data, and will have to manually search the website for data which should be updated automatically. Otherwise the Update feature is pretty much useless, in this case.