NinjaTrader

BEST KNOWN FOR

A futures platform, a brokerage and a live trading desk

NinjaTrader puts the SuperDOM price ladder, ATM strategies, order flow tools, a simulator and NinjaScript automation into one toolkit for retail futures traders, and backs it with its own brokerage. Around the software it runs a free education program that Benzinga named its 2024 winner for Excellence in Futures Education. The centerpiece is NinjaTrader Live, where Anthony Crudele’s desk pairs macro analysis with traders executing live at the open and the close, six days a week.

IN NINJATRADER'S WORDS

NinjaTrader's featured video

“How to Use Fibonacci Without Overcomplicating Charts” · published Jan 24, 2026 · 420K views

Who is NinjaTrader?

For more than two decades NinjaTrader has been a home base for retail futures traders. It is a trading platform and a brokerage in one. The software charts the market, routes orders from a price ladder, replays past sessions and runs automated strategies, while its own futures commission merchant carries the accounts. Around both, the company has built an award-winning free education program, anchored by NinjaTrader Live, a trading show that airs six days a week. Headquartered in Chicago, NinjaTrader counts more than 2 million users worldwide. It sums up its purpose in one line: to build better futures for all traders.

When Raymond Deux founded NinjaTrader in 2003, his aim, as he later put it, was to give futures traders an innovative platform. ColoradoBiz traced its start to a private trading platform in the basement of his home in Denver’s Washington Park. A developer community grew around NinjaScript, the platform’s C# framework, and by 2023 the company counted more than 1,000 third-party vendors building indicators, apps and strategies. In 2014 NinjaTrader bought Chicago-based Mirus Futures and launched its own brokerage, and in 2020 Long Ridge Equity Partners led a majority growth investment. NinjaTrader Clearing opened as the group’s own futures commission merchant in 2021, and the 2022 purchase of Tradovate added a cloud-based platform and brokerage. In March 2025 Kraken agreed to acquire NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion, a deal Kraken called the largest yet to combine traditional finance and crypto. It closed that May, and NinjaTrader continues as a standalone platform under chief executive Martin Franchi.

The platform comes in three forms. NinjaTrader Desktop is the Windows flagship, with multi-monitor workspaces, more than 100 built-in indicators, the SuperDOM price ladder and Chart Trader for placing orders straight from a chart. ATM strategies attach stops and targets automatically, order flow tools show buying and selling pressure, and Market Replay lets traders work through historical sessions. NinjaTrader Web runs in any browser, and the mobile apps cover iPhone and Android. The site describes the platform as free to download and use for charting, backtesting and simulated trading. New tools keep arriving. NinjaTrader Pulse gauges retail positioning from real client trades, and the Innovation Lab opened in September 2026 with Nina, an AI trading companion that studies a trader’s own habits. The lab’s AI Strategy Builder turns plain-language rules into testable strategies.

NinjaTrader Live is the company’s daily classroom. Relaunched in March 2025, it is led by Senior Vice President Anthony Crudele, a former S&P pit trader and host of the Futures Radio Show. Senior Economist Tracy Shuchart, Senior Market Strategist Jim Cagnina and Senior Macro Strategist Craig Shapiro complete the desk. Mornings start at 8:00 am ET with The Morning Gap, often with a guest economist or strategist. Guest traders then take Trade the Open and Midday Markets. Regular faces include Tanja, Lumi, TTrades, Carmine Rosato and Trader Kane. Trade the Close runs from 2:00 to 4:00 pm ET, Monday to Thursday. Fridays bring Capital Preservation Friday with Matt Kenah, the former Chicago pit trader known as Pax. A Sunday evening show previews the week at the Globex open. Each of the 29 regular morning broadcasts from 4 September to 16 October 2026 drew between 12,000 and 21,000 views.

The Arena turns practice into competition. Launched in beta in February 2025, it hosts free simulated contests on live market data with cash prizes. The first Arena Cup, in autumn 2025, made room for up to 30,000 traders, and its opening day and final were broadcast on NinjaTrader Live. NinjaTrader has widened its reach since joining Kraken. It launched in Europe in January 2026 and now serves 30 EU and EEA countries. In June, UFC named it the promotion’s first Official Futures Trading Partner in the United States and Canada. It added CME Group Single Stock futures in July and MIAX’s Tini Bloomberg index futures in October. Benzinga had already named it Best Brokerage for Trading Futures four years running through 2023. For the individual futures trader, NinjaTrader puts professional tools, a regulated brokerage and a free daily classroom in one place.

How NinjaTrader trades

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NinjaTrader's career timeline

SHORTS

These Traders Rank Themselves "S-Tier"

1.7K · Oct 17, 2026

Prop firms NinjaTrader works with

No prop-firm partnerships announced.

NinjaTrader is a trading platform and brokerage, not a prop firm. Through NT Technologies, part of NinjaTrader Group, it builds NinjaTrader Prop and Tradovate Prop (announced 1 October 2025), platform editions that prop firms offer to traders working through evaluations.

NinjaTrader Clearing, LLC is registered with the CFTC as a futures commission merchant and is an NFA member (NFA ID 0309379). NinjaTrader Live is produced by NinjaTrader, LLC, the group’s software company, for educational purposes.

We list a firm relationship only with dated public evidence from the last 30 days, re-checked each editorial pass.

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