Suggestion: Add Heatbeat to Zenfire's "Risk Management System"

[shawnj]

This suggestion is in response to a rather unpleasant situation that occurred to me and a lot of Mirus futures clients and I'm guessing to all zenfire brokers clients. Around mid-morning (us central) on Thursday November 12, 2009 I started to do a routine cancellation of a working order. The ninatrader status was showing green (Connected - Zenfire). Then Bam! I get an error message stating:
"
Error=UnableToChangeOrder Native error='The risk management system is not available'
"

Calling my broker's Trading Desk resulted in an "All circuits busy" message from the phone company. On shit! I assume everyone had the same problem and slammed the order desk. It took me about 20 minutes but I finally recovered from this DISASTER with minimum damage.

The ninjatrader connection status stayed green the whole time. I will no longer feel comfortable with the green Connected display showing on ninjatrader.

My suggestion: Add some type of heartbeat code that polls the status of "The risk management system" every few seconds.

thanks,
shawnj

[NinjaTrader_ChristopherJ]

Hello shawnj,

Thank you for your post.

I will forward this to our development team for future considerations.

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

[r1962j]

I had this happen today (11/16/09) did it happen last Thursday also??? Is this going to be a common problem? I've not had it happen at all in the last year.

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

You need to contact your ZenFire broker in order to get an answer to this question. NT is no controlling that issue.

[shawnj]

Originally Posted by r1962j

I had this happen today (11/16/09) did it happen last Thursday also??? Is this going to be a common problem? I've not had it happen at all in the last year.

I did not have this problem on 11/16/2009 however, based on how it went on 11/12/2009, if a trader did not try to change an order or have a resting order filled, the problem could have come and gone without knowing it since ninjatrader seems to not flag that error condition - hence my suggestion.

shawnj

[shawnj]

Another "Risk Management System" error this morning not flagged by NinjaTrader. Mirus Zen-fire December 11, 2009 at 8:33 AM Central.

shawnj

[NinjaTrader_ChristopherJ]

Hello shawnj,

Please reboot your PC at this time and let me know if the issue persists.

[shawnj]

I don't think you are understanding what I'm trying to document/suggest here. The problem is occurring on the zen-fire end. I'm just suggesting ninjatrader identify this problem (at the zen-fire end) when it happens. For example this morning, I didn't know zen-fire was having a problem till I tried to place an order. That's when I received the "Risk Management System" error. At the moment I sent the order, and when the error message was staring me in the faced, ninjatrader was showing green status. After a few minutes, the zen-fire guys (I guessing that is where the problem is originating from) fix it and there were no more problem for the rest of the day. I did not reboot nor did I restart anything. They fixed it on their end.

shawnj

[NinjaTrader_Kyle]

Hi Shawnj,

Thank you for your reply and the clarification.

Such notification would be rather difficult to implement. I will, of course, forward this on to my development team. For the time being at least, the error message will continue to fire when this Zen-Fire component is not available.

[bingkeff]

During the December ZENFIRE Risk Management software error I lost money by not being able to adjust my target to close my trade and the trade went against me for a loss of money. Who is responsible for my loss of money. It was a ZENFIRE issue so are they legally responsible for my loss? Any feedback would be appreciated.

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

You needed to discuss that issue with your broker.

[shawnj]

Originally Posted by bingkeff

are they legally responsible for my loss?

I think we all intuitively know the answer to that one . However, we need folks who have had issues with the "Risk Management System" to chime in here to help emphasize that the NinjaTrader software can help us out by maintaining some type of status feedback with the Risk Management System the same way it does with the data feed and the order entry servers.

shawnj

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

There is no such info provided by the underlying "ZenFire API". Thus, NT would be unable to provide any form of notification.

[shawnj]

Originally Posted by NinjaTrader_Dierk

There is no such info provided by the underlying "ZenFire API". Thus, NT would be unable to provide any form of notification.

I understand, but Ninatrader is, I'm assuming, the most import client app to use the ZenFire api. Surely you have some significant influence on the evolution of the ZenFire api.

We are talking about a very real, very dangerous condition worthy of some coordination between the ZenFire developers and the NinjaTrader developers.

shawnj

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

We pointed out the hassle our joint customers are experiencing to ZenFire. Please contact your broker in case you're seeking for an ETA on getting that resolved.