NinjaTrader powered by Zen-Fire Trading Engine!

In light of recent questions about Zen-Fire's ability to send orders to the exchange, a few random orders were pulled and their audit trails analyzed. The results are summarized below:

Number of orders analyzed: 3 Date of orders: February 11, 2009 Average time to send orders to the exchange: 0:00:00.000651 (< 1 Millisecond)

For the orders sampled, it took an average of approximately 0.651 milliseconds to process the order and send it to the exchange where it remained until cancelled or filled.

(Times were measured from the moment the order was received by the trading engine until the trading engine sent the order to the exchange. It does not measure the amount of time the order took to get from the client to the engine, nor the amount of time the exchange took to process the order. Those times are variables that are not controlled by the trading engine.)

Since all electronic trading engines are designed to send orders to the exchanges, traders shouldn't ask IF their orders are sent to the exchange, rather HOW FAST are the orders processed.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: Do my orders go directly to the exchange when trading on Zen-Fire even though I use a broker?

A: The orders go directly through Zen-Fire and on to the exchange regardless of which broker is used. In the example, the 3 orders were each processed and sent to the exchange in about 0.651 milliseconds. The broker is not involved in the transmission of orders to the exchanges. The broker also connects in order to view the transactions and manage the risk but does not interfere with the order.

Q: I've been told that my orders are held on my computer, is there any truth to that?

A: All Limit, Stop Market, Stop Limit and Market orders are held at the exchange (Globex in this case; not all exchanges support all order types.) However some advanced trading platforms allow traders to create their own custom orders and order modifiers that the exchange cannot process. Examples of orders that would be held on the local machine include Volume Trigger orders, Negative Stop Limit Orders, and order modifiers such as OCO and trailing instructions.

Q: How can I know which orders are held by the exchange and which ones are held on Zen-Fire servers?

A: The following table summarizes which orders are native to the exchange and which must be synthetically created. Native orders are held by the exchange while synthetic orders are held by Zen-Fire.

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