How to Connect Goat Funded Futures to NinjaTrader (Tradovate)
Goat Funded Futures is a futures-only firm — its own disclaimer limits trading to products listed on CME, COMEX, NYMEX and CBOT, so nothing on this page applies to the Goat brand’s forex side. What trips people up here happens before NinjaTrader is even open: the platform and the data feed are both chosen at checkout, and Goat Funded Futures sells NinjaTrader and Tradovate as two separate selections sitting on the same CQG feed. This page covers the Tradovate route. The firm publishes no NinjaTrader walkthrough of its own, so if you chose NinjaTrader rather than Tradovate at checkout, ask support which connection entry and which credential set apply to your account before you start clicking. Choose a DxFeed platform and neither one is something you can switch into afterwards.
What you need before you start
- An account on the CQG data feed. Goat Funded Futures groups its platforms by feed: CQG covers NinjaTrader, Tradovate and TradingView (which it describes as going via Tradovate); DxFeed covers Quantower, ATAS, Volumetrica, DeepCharts and DeepMap; TickBlaze sits on its own. The firm says platform switches are only possible within the same market data provider, and are only made where the issue was on its end — not for an incorrect selection made during checkout.
- The simulation credentials the firm issued for that account. They arrive by email after purchase and are shown against each account on the dashboard at app.goatfundedfutures.com. In the firm’s words, its accounts use separate sim credentials: they are not your Goat Funded Futures website login, and they are not a personal Tradovate account you may already hold.
- The account showing as Active on that dashboard with login credentials visible. That is the firm’s own readiness test; if it is not showing, nothing you do in NinjaTrader will help.
- NinjaTrader Desktop on Windows, running on hardware you can physically get to. Goat Funded Futures bans virtual private servers, cloud-hosted machines and remote desktop tools outright, on evaluations and funded accounts alike, and names NinjaTrader’s own VPS partners among the services it prohibits.
- A Non-Professional self-certification on the exchange terms. The firm is blunt about this: self-certify as a professional and you will be unable to trade with them.
Connecting Goat Funded Futures to NinjaTrader
Take the credentials off your dashboard
Log in at app.goatfundedfutures.com. Each account is listed with its status and its own login credentials. Copy the username exactly as shown and note which account it belongs to — if you are running more than one, mixing up which set belongs to which account is easy to do and hard to spot.
Sign in to Tradovate’s web platform once first
Do this before you go near NinjaTrader. Fresh credentials are not much use until the account has been logged into once and the exchange terms and market data prompts have been cleared. This is where you self-certify as Non-Professional. Goat Funded Futures covers the data cost itself, so there is nothing to pay; as the firm puts it, if your platform asks you to activate a market data subscription, select the required exchanges and proceed.
Enable Multi-Provider in NinjaTrader
Tools, then Settings, then General. Tick Multi-Provider, apply, and restart NinjaTrader. Without it the Configure option does not appear in the Connections menu at all, which is why a good number of people conclude the platform is broken before they have started.
Add the connection in NinjaTrader
Control Center, Connections, Configure. If the firm issued you Tradovate credentials, double-click NinjaTrader in the Available list. That is the connection type that carries Tradovate prop accounts. Current builds do not list a separate Tradovate entry. Goat Funded Futures does ship named connections of its own on the DxFeed side — its ATAS walkthrough has you pick a “Goat Funded Futures dxFeed” connection — but it publishes nothing equivalent for NinjaTrader. So if the credentials you were sent do not look like Tradovate ones, stop and ask the firm which entry to use rather than working through the list by trial and error. Rename the connection to Goat Funded Futures so you can tell it apart later.
Enter your credentials and set Account Type to Simulation
Type the username and password rather than pasting them; a trailing space carried across from an email is a leading cause of a refused logon. Set Account Type to Simulation. That is correct for evaluations and for funded accounts alike, and it is what the firm itself tells you in its Tradovate login troubleshooting: confirm you are connecting to the simulation environment, not live. Live is for a retail Tradovate brokerage account, which is not what you have been given.
Connect and check the account appears
Connections, then Goat Funded Futures. The account and its balance should show in the Accounts tab within a few seconds. On a brand new account, give it a couple of minutes before deciding something is wrong; entitlements can take a short while to settle after that first Tradovate login.
If it will not connect
- Login failed, or credentials rejected. Almost always the wrong credential set. The firm’s own troubleshooting note tells you to use the credentials it sent rather than a personal Tradovate account, and the website login is a third, unrelated thing. After that, look for a trailing space, and check you have not crossed the username of one account with the password of another.
- Connected, but no accounts. Account state at the firm rather than anything in NinjaTrader. Check the dashboard says Active with credentials visible. See no accounts were found.
- No Configure option under Connections. Multi-Provider is switched off, or it is ticked and NinjaTrader has not been restarted. See why Configure is missing.
- Connected, charts empty. Market data rather than the connection. If you never logged into Tradovate’s web platform and cleared the exchange terms, the entitlement is not in place. The firm warns that without an active market data subscription your charts may be delayed or certain instruments may not load. See connected but no data.
- SuperDOM shows one price level each side. Not a fault, and a separate thing from the empty charts above. Goat Funded Futures supplies top of book only and states plainly that it does not currently provide Level 2 market data, with a paid depth add-on described as still in development. A depth ladder will stay bare whatever you change in NinjaTrader.
- Gold or silver will not load. On the CQG feed the full CME bundle is included, and the firm points out that gold and silver are listed under COMEX rather than CME yet are still covered by the free data when trading via Tradovate. If they are missing, treat that as an entitlement question for support, not a NinjaTrader setting.
Goat Funded Futures and NinjaTrader: questions we get
Can I run Goat Funded Futures next to another prop firm?
Yes, on this route. NinjaTrader does not cap Tradovate connections the way it caps Rithmic ones, so adding a second Tradovate firm does not displace this one and there is no add-on to buy for that. Several accounts at Goat Funded Futures are simpler still — the firm says you can copy trades into all of them. Having the connections open is what makes that possible; the copying itself is a separate job, handled by a trade copier.
Is the website login the same as the connection login?
No. Three separate things are in play: your Goat Funded Futures website and dashboard login, the simulation credentials issued per trading account, and any personal Tradovate account you happen to own already. NinjaTrader wants the middle one. It is the first thing the firm’s own troubleshooting article tells you to check.
What if Tradovate is not available in my country?
Then this route is probably closed to you. Where Tradovate is restricted, Goat Funded Futures offers TickBlaze and its DxFeed platforms — Quantower, ATAS, Volumetrica and DeepCharts — instead. NinjaTrader is not among the alternatives it lists there. The firm does publish a list of countries where NinjaTrader and Tradovate are not available, in its help article on supported trading platforms, and says the list can change without notice. Check it, and contact support before purchasing if you are unsure which platform suits your location.