Updating Ninja Trader data

Updating your data with Ninja Trader is very easy to do, and is a very quick process.

First of all start Ninja Trader.
Connect to your data provider. If you are doing the Sentient Trader Guided Trial then you should connect to the free Kinetick - End Of Day data feed. Use the menu File > Connect > Kinetick.
Confirm that Ninja Trader is connected to Kinetick at the bottom left of the Ninja Control Center.
Now that you are connected, you are ready to update the data, but before you do ... you are going to want to be able to monitor the process, and get confirmation that the files required have been updated. You do this by using the Ninja Trader Output window which is opened by using the menu Tools > Output Window:
With that window open you are now ready to update the data. Simply open the workspace which contains all the charts you created for analysis in Sentient Trader by using the menu File > Workspaces > Open Workspace ...
Ninja Trader will open each one of your charts (you should see them flashing up onto your desktop), load any new data (which can take a minute or two), and the Sentient Trader indicator on each chart will update Sentient Trader's data.
Note that if you have minimized any of your Ninja Trader charts then the data will not be loaded and so you will have to select that chart from the task bar. Fortunately that is made easier by the fact that a chart that has not had its data loaded by Ninja Trader will have no title in the taskbar.
You can watch the process happening by keeping an eye on Ninja Trader's Output Window. There is an unusual bug in Ninja Trader that hides the Output Window when you open a workspace, and so you will probably find that you need to go to the Control Center and use the Tools > Output Window... menu again to see it (note that if you didn't do this previously then Ninja Trader will only start writing information to the Output Window when you open it now, which means that you will have missed several of your chart updates). This is what you will see there after a successful update (these are the 24 sample workspace files that are used for our getting started process):
There you can see each symbol being updated, and the last date of data that is included in the file.
There is another way of knowing that Ninja Trader has updated your data, without looking at the Output Window, and that is by moving your mouse down to the taskbar, and hovering it over the Ninja Trader icon. All charts with titles have had their data loaded. Those with no title are still waiting to have their data loaded.
The final and definitive way of checking that your Ninja Trader data has been updated is to use Windows Explorer to browse to the "\STNT" folder in your My Documents folder and take a look at the last edit date and time of the files there.

If you find that your data files are not being updated, check the following:

Is Ninja Trader connected to the data provider? You should see a green Connected bar at the bottom left of Ninja Trader's Control Center window.
Is the chart maximized, or displayed as a window on your desktop? Minimized charts do not load data.
Is the Sentient Trader indicator applied to the Ninja Trader chart?
Does the My Documents\STNT folder exist on your computer? If not then create a folder with that name.
Try using the Alt-Tab key combination (or the task bar) to switch focus between all the Ninja Trader charts. This usually forces Ninja Trader to update the data on the chart.

Helpful Hints

Although your desktop might become very cluttered with 24 (or more) charts open, it is best not to minimize these charts, because when it comes time to update your data, Ninja Trader does not load new data into a minimized chart.

We find it best to close the workspace before closing Ninja Trader. If you do this then when you next open Ninja Trader you will be able to first connect to your data provider, and then open your workspace. The advantage of this is that Ninja Trader will update the data which Sentient Trader uses automatically. If you don't do this, then Ninja Trader will open your workspace before you have a chance to connect to your data provider. Then once you have connected to the data provider Ninja Trader will only update the data used by Sentient Trader when you actually focus the chart - which means that you need to switch between all the charts in the workspace. Miss one out, and the data won't be updated.

Now that you have updated your data, you will want Sentient Trader to update the analysis and make trading decisions.

Getting Started Roadmap for Trader Edition

Getting Started Roadmap for Analyst Edition