NinjaTrader Time Sync and Windows Time

In a live webinar or recording, you’ve probably heard John Paul discuss the importance of synchronizing your Windows clock with official time servers. Why is this important? Your data feed may use native time stamping, and if your Windows clock is off by only a small amount, NinjaTrader will display information differently. This applies to both real-time and historical data.

It’s best explained by NinjaTrader support rep. Matthew…

“You can also keep an eye on any discrepancies in real-time by first opening a Time and Sales window and comparing the real-time time stamps to your local PC clock. You will want to compare this down to the second. Note: this would only be true if your data provider offers native time stamping.”

To check if your data feed provider uses native time stamping, visit this page and click the first plus sign:
http://www.ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt7/index.html?historical_data.htm

We recommend the fix below regardless of whether your data feed is native or not. You could switch data feeds a month from now and forget about the importance of synchronicity.

What’s the best/easiest solution?
We recommend a free program called Karen’s Time Sync. The download link is below the screenshot image on the KTS site. Using the Auto Sync feature, KTS will automatically synchronize your Windows clock with ultra-precise official time servers in your time zone. Using the program is easy – select a server in your time zone, click Sync Now, optionally check “Automatically sync my clock…”. You should then see a report at the bottom indicating the success of the sync. If an error occurs or a connection cannot be established, find a new server in your area and try again. Once you find a server that works, jump over to the Settings tab and configure KTS to launch when Windows starts. We also recommended checking “Sync My Clock When This Program is Automatically Launched” and also checking “Then Exit This Program”.

Synchronizing your clock may also improve your experience with other trading platforms such as TradeStation and eSignal.