I have the utmost respect for Sierra Chart as a company, software approach, engineering, and the fact that as opposed to many in our industry, their software growth came from reputation and stability, not ad spent. That speaks volumes of their customers and their value system as a company. My customers must know that I respect their choices, especially when it comes to Sierra; however, the customer “is always right” only to the extent that he is knowledgeable enough to make intelligent decisions while he has all the facts right. So for you to be “right,” here are a few facts about routing that you should consider.
If you consider changing routing or “try” a routing, please consider that it has lots of implications. First, routing means that you send your order to the exchange, and this means you must have a solid, robust infrastructure to facilitate that. Second, suppose one of your servers fails. In that case, you must have enough redundancy to ensure they have a safe/fail switch that the trader’s activity is not interrupted. Also, a company must have a 24/5 staff worldwide to address any stability issues at any time.
Second, routing also provides risk management modules. For example, the data must calculate the margins appropriately for overnight exchange margins, configured for the day trading margins, and do all these calculations while recognizing what orders are potentially liquidating (offsetting) and which ones are new and adding to the positions.
Routing also has to be integrated right with the clearer’s back-offices for statements, files, and other admin functionally and all have to operate smoothly.
Many clients take things for granted is because electronic components work well with one another.
Now consider that everything works when a programmer sits behind his screen and says, “it’s all good,” but when the software and systems scale up to thousands of users are on it, only then the strength of the design, stability, and architecture of the routing shows (or not).
I respect that Sierra wants to build its own, and I wish them nothing but the best of luck. Further, I have much respect for SC, building a following on solid and memory light software. But I never bought into the narrative that everyone’s routing is “bad” and the non-professional attacks on other ISVs (routing) on their boards. You can disagree about the way you build software, but you should never turn your voice and community into a platform to put down others in a non-professional manner.
Most of our customers use two routing methods:
- Rithmic
- CQG
Rithmic connects to tens of software that has implemented the same routing, data, and risk management. Recently, Rithmic has enhanced SC’s ability to get more historical market data and the interface between SC and Rithmic.
I can say the same about CQG that has connections to probably hundreds of software (3rd party screens) through its API. Both have millions of orders that go through them.
For the most part, both ISVs provide a robust and solid foundation to their traders.
At the expense of sounding a bit skeptical, the last solution with TT was not exactly stellar. And we were all sold that TT is “The One”.
The ultimate price paid when a routing meltdown occurs is the customer. So think twice before you switch from something solid to anything else, especially new despite the push to change.
All software will malfunction, and you always get to have a contingency plan, but always consider how fast something comes back up versus days upon days of a malfunction. This depends a lot on company resources and large staff, or lack of them.
My partner IBs in the industry would love to market “I have it” to earn customer’s business. The first people who switch are usually the trading enthusiasts and the blind fans who rarely trade and are always busy with everything else but trading. (this is my personal experience and opinion with those who call me first to switch because “Sierra said”). In other words, those who change the fastest are the ones who would likely be not affected by any routing in any significant way. Active traders would be slower to move because they are on routing that works. Again, This is my personal opinion.
Bottom line: I will wait. I want to see how the system handles snags, fast markets, gapping markets, and other technical issues. Then, I will talk to risk managers and hear their opinion. If all are impressed with SC’s new routing, I will go as far as asking SC to connect it to our in-house platform
I stand by my FCMs that provided us with sufficient feedback on whether we should implement it.
Thank you,
Matt Z
Optimus Futures