Sierra Chart setup

Sierra Chart reads the same Rithmic connection as R|Trader Pro and Quantower. It stays fast under load, its charting engine is one you can extend yourself, and its order handling is configured rather than assumed.

You need your own Sierra Chart package

Sierra Chart is not included in what you paid us.

The subscription has to be bought from Sierra Chart, on one of the Integrated packages: 10, 11, or 12. The Base packages, 3 and 5, do not connect to an outside service at all, so they will not trade with us no matter how they are configured. Sierra Chart says this in plain terms on its packages page, and its Rithmic page sets the floor at package 10.

Package 10 is enough to trade with us. Package 11 adds the advanced studies. Package 12 adds Market by Order, which is built on depth we do not supply, so do not buy it expecting a full book. What is included

Read the whole page before you pay for anything. If nothing here sounds like your setup, R|Trader Pro and Quantower both cost nothing and both read the same feed.

Before you start

You need an account on Rithmic. Sierra Chart logs in with Rithmic credentials, so if you are not sure what you bought, check the feed behind each platform.

You need your Rithmic username and password. They are emailed to you after checkout and they are in your dashboard.

You need Windows 10 or later. There is no Mac or Linux build, so on a Mac you need Windows in a virtual machine (Parallels, or VMware Fusion). Sierra Chart documents running it under Wine, but it also says its support will not answer questions about that, so it is not a setup to pick if you want help when something breaks.

Accept the Rithmic agreements first

Go to Rithmic's agreement page, sign in with your Rithmic credentials, and accept the agreements listed there.

If you are asked whether you use the data as a professional or a non-professional, choose Non-Professional unless you hold a financial licence, work for a financial firm, or use the data for a business. Professional status is billed by Rithmic, per exchange, every month.

Do this before you touch Sierra Chart. Unsigned agreements do not look like unsigned agreements from inside the platform: the connection comes up and then the charts refuse to load, with a permission error in the message log and nothing on screen that says why.

Install it

Download it from sierrachart.com and run the installer. It is 64 bit only.

Take the current version, and once it is installed keep it current with Help >> Download Current Version. Our server entry only appears in recent builds.

Sierra Chart's own login, the one your package is billed to, is separate from your Rithmic login and separate from your Lumen login. There are three sets of credentials in this process and mixing them up is the most common failure on this page.

The connection

Sierra Chart documents this window itself. Follow it, but use our server: LumenFutures.

Open Global Settings >> Data/Trade Service Settings.

In Current Selected Service, choose Rithmic Direct - DTC [Trading], then press OK.

Wait about ten seconds, then open the same window again. The server list is fetched from Rithmic after you pick the service, so it is empty the first time and populated the second. This is not a bug and there is nothing to press in between.

All six fields take the same credentials. Sierra Chart keeps them separate because some brokers issue separate data logins; Rithmic does not, so you are typing one pair three times.

Username and password are both case sensitive. Type them rather than pasting them, so you do not carry a trailing space in from the email.

The server name. The list Rithmic sends can suffix the entry with an area or with whether quotes are aggregated. Any LumenFutures entry is ours. Pick the area closest to you.

Press OK, then connect with File >> Connect to Data Feed.

Turn off Trade Simulation Mode

Check Trade >> Trade Simulation Mode On/Off before you place anything. If it is on, Sierra Chart fills your orders against its own simulator, on your machine. Nothing reaches Rithmic, nothing reaches us, and the fills look real while your balance in the dashboard does not move.

Where your stops actually live

Rithmic manages OCO orders on its own servers, and Sierra Chart will use that if you let it. Turn on Global Settings >> General Trade Settings >> Use Server Side OCO Orders. With it off, Sierra Chart links the stop and the target on your computer instead, and a closed platform or a dropped connection can leave one side working after the other fills.

There is a gap that setting does not close. A stop and target attached to an entry that has not filled yet are held inside Sierra Chart, not at Rithmic. They are only sent when the entry fills. So if you place a bracket and close the platform before you are in, the protection was never out there. Once the entry fills and the orders are live at Rithmic, they survive Sierra Chart being closed.

You can check which way an order was handled: the Trade Activity Log records server side OCO orders as such.

Once you are in

Open Trade >> Trade Activity Log and check the connection came up clean, then open a chart on a front month contract and watch a few prints before you place anything.

Level 1 data is included, and there is no separate data bill from us. What is included

Do not buy Denali. It is Sierra Chart's own exchange feed, billed per exchange on top of your package, and it is a second data subscription for data you already have. Sierra Chart recommends it over Rithmic's feed, sometimes strongly. That recommendation is about Rithmic's data quality in general and it is not written with our accounts in mind; the feed we supply comes through Rithmic, and the Rithmic feed is what these steps configure.

When it does not work

The server list is empty. Close the settings window and open it again. The list arrives from Rithmic a few seconds after you select the service, and the window does not refresh itself while it is open.

LumenFutures is not in the list. Your build is old, or the list has not refreshed yet. Run Help >> Download Current Version, restart, and look again.

A permission error, or charts that will not load data. The Rithmic agreements are not signed. Go back to the link above, accept them, then reconnect. If you signed them minutes ago, give it half an hour and try again.

Login rejected. Check LumenFutures is the selected server, then check which of your three logins you are typing. Rithmic credentials go in all six fields, your Sierra Chart credentials go to Sierra Chart for billing, and your Lumen website login goes in neither. Rithmic also caps credentials at 31 characters; if yours are longer than that, tell us and we will sort it.

It says the session is already in use. Rithmic expects your credentials in one place. Close R|Trader Pro, Quantower, or whatever else is logged in, then reconnect.

Orders do not reach the dashboard. Trade Simulation Mode is on. Turn it off under Trade, then place a trade again and check the Trade Activity Log.

No depth in the DOM. Level 1 is what comes with the account, so the ladder shows the best bid, the best ask, and your own working orders. Market by Order and the full book are built on depth we do not supply. Nothing is broken and there is nothing to fix. What is included

Only admins can place trades. This is not a Sierra Chart fault and reconnecting will not clear it. Rithmic returns it when the account is no longer allowed to trade, which on our side means it is closed: either the drawdown was hit, or a position was still open at the 4:45 PM ET flat time and got closed for you. Check the dashboard, and talk to us rather than to Sierra Chart.

The connection drops. Turn off your VPN. After that, reconnect from the File menu, then restart Sierra Chart. If you are running it in a virtual machine on a Mac, that layer is also worth ruling out before you blame the feed.

Everything is laggy. Sierra Chart is light for what it does, so lag here is usually studies rather than the platform. Close chartbooks you are not trading, cut the history each chart loads, and take off studies you are not reading.

Who to ask

Sierra Chart is not our software. We cannot fix its bugs, we do not have its source, and we cannot help with your package or your Sierra Chart bill.

The platform itself, crashes, charting, studies, ACSIL, your subscription and billing for it: Sierra Chart support. Technical questions go on their support board; anything private, billing included, goes through an account support ticket. They ask you not to email.

Your account, credentials, balances, what the rules are, billing with us: us, through the chat on any page.