Connecting The Trading Pit to NinjaTrader 8

When you buy a Futures Prime Challenge from The Trading Pit you choose a futures technology during checkout — dxFeed, Rithmic or Tradovate — and that single choice decides which trading platforms your credentials will open. Shortly afterwards the firm emails you what it calls Platform Credentials: a User ID and password that are deliberately not the Dashboard login you use for the client area. The firm asks you to allow fifteen minutes after purchase before chasing that email.

The checkout choice is the part that catches people out. Against the Rithmic technology, the firm’s own live checkout lists exactly one platform: R|Trader Pro. NinjaTrader appears in the same checkout under the Tradovate technology, alongside Tradovate itself, and the firm’s NinjaTrader landing page describes that integration as running through Tradovate. Nothing published on thetradingpit.com or its help centre describes connecting NinjaTrader with The Trading Pit Rithmic credentials.

So before you open NinjaTrader, work out which credentials you are holding. If they are Rithmic credentials, the login the firm documents is R|Trader or R|Trader Pro, with the System set to The Trading Pit and the Gateway Location set to Frankfurt. The firm’s own Quantower and ATAS guides also name a Chicago server, and its Quantower guide says to use whichever one your email shows — go by the email and the firm’s own help centre.

The Trading Pit is the only party that can tell you what you may run on your account, so confirm your platform and your feed with the firm before you buy or change anything. What follows is the mechanics: what the firm issues, which feed opens which platform, and how the NinjaTrader connection is set up.

What The Trading Pit issues and supports

The names below are reported from the firm’s live checkout and help centre rather than from a NinjaTrader session we have run on a The Trading Pit account, so check them against what the firm issued you.

• A futures technology, chosen at purchase — dxFeed, Rithmic and Tradovate are separate selections with separate platform lists, and you cannot reach a platform that sits under a technology you did not buy.
• Rithmic — the checkout lists one platform against it: R|Trader Pro.
• Tradovate — the checkout lists NinjaTrader and Tradovate.
• dxFeed — the checkout lists ATAS, Quantower and Deepcharts.
• Platform credentials by email — a User ID and password, explicitly not your Dashboard credentials. Installers are downloaded from your Dashboard.
• Other platforms on your own license — Sierra Chart, MotiveWave, Jigsaw and Volfix are named as compatible but unsupported, with Jigsaw and Sierra Chart noted as Rithmic-only. NinjaTrader is not on that list.
• Market data — Level 1 top-of-book from the Chicago exchange is covered by the firm; upgrades are paid add-ons that expire at the end of each calendar month and are repurchased through the Client Area.
• Simulated accounts — the firm states that all accounts it provides are demo accounts with virtual funds.

The firm’s pages do not entirely agree: an older help-centre article groups ATAS, Quantower, Volsys and R|Trader together for all futures challenges, which the live checkout does not match. Where the two conflict, ask the firm which applies to the account you bought.

What you need before you start

• Your Platform Credentials email — the User ID and password the firm sent, not the Dashboard pair.
• Rithmic’s terms accepted on Rithmic’s own website, if your account is on the Rithmic technology. The firm is explicit that this comes first and that nothing else works until it is done; use the route the firm gives you rather than a link from a blog.
• Your professional or non-professional certification, answered accurately. You give it when you accept Rithmic’s terms. The firm says it covers market data costs for traders who certify as non-professional, and warns that certifying as professional produces the full professional data amount of $488 charged by the exchange, with account suspension and further action if that invoice is not settled within 72 hours.
• NinjaTrader Desktop, installed and updated, if your account is on the technology that carries it.
• Multi-Provider enabled in NinjaTrader — tick it under Tools > Settings > General if you intend to run more than one connection at once, then restart.

Connecting The Trading Pit to NinjaTrader

1. Confirm which technology your account was bought on

This decides everything that follows. Open your Client Area and look at what you purchased: a Rithmic account gives you R|Trader Pro, while an account on the Tradovate technology is the one the firm pairs with NinjaTrader. If the order does not make it obvious, ask support before installing anything.

2. If you are holding Rithmic credentials, your route is R|Trader

The firm’s documented sequence is short: enter the platform User ID and password from the email, choose The Trading Pit as your System, choose Frankfurt as your Gateway Location, then click Login. To run an additional platform against that account, the firm’s route is to enable Allow Plugins in R|Trader and tick “Use plugin connection” on the second platform — which platforms that covers is a question for the firm.

3. Turn on Multi-Provider and restart NinjaTrader

In the Control Center go to Tools > Settings > General and tick Multi-Provider, then close NinjaTrader completely and reopen it. Multi-Provider is what allows more than one connection to run at the same time, and the restart is the step people skip — the change does not take effect until NinjaTrader has been closed and relaunched.

4. Add the connection in Control Center > Connections > Configure

For an account on the Tradovate technology, the Available entry you want is the one called NinjaTrader. Current builds do not list a separate Tradovate entry. Enter your platform User ID and password, set Account Type to Simulation unless the firm’s own documentation says otherwise for your stage, and give the connection a name you will recognise later.

5. Connect and check what actually arrived

Choose the connection under Connections and watch the Control Center status line. When it settles, open the Accounts tab, confirm the account number and balance match what the firm shows you, then load a chart on an instrument your data covers. If it connects but no account appears, check that you used the emailed Platform Credentials rather than the Dashboard pair.

Questions we get about The Trading Pit

Can I put my The Trading Pit Rithmic credentials into the Rithmic entry in NinjaTrader?

We have no firm-published source for that setup. The Rithmic technology lists R|Trader Pro and nothing else, the firm’s NinjaTrader material attaches NinjaTrader to Tradovate, and NinjaTrader does not appear on the own-license list either. Ask The Trading Pit what you are permitted to use on your account — their answer governs, not ours.

Which gateway should I pick?

The Trading Pit documents Frankfurt for R|Trader, and its Quantower guide says Frankfurt or Chicago depending on the server named in your email. Gateway and system names differ from firm to firm and are not interchangeable; a mismatched pairing produces a login rejection that tells you nothing useful, so copy the firm’s names exactly as they appear in your email.

Do I get new credentials when I pass the challenge?

The firm publishes nothing either way about whether the Earning stage issues fresh platform credentials, so ask support when you pass rather than assuming a saved connection will carry across.

Can I be logged into more than one platform at once?

The help centre says you can be logged into NinjaTrader and Tradovate at the same time, and that TradingView connects through Tradovate rather than NinjaTrader. As a general platform matter, NinjaTrader Desktop runs one Rithmic connection at a time, although one connection can carry several accounts under the same login. Our Unlimited Prop Firm Connections add-on lets you connect and manage multiple Rithmic accounts at the same time, from one window, with per-connection monitoring, and it tells you which System entry your firm uses, or adds that entry to NinjaTrader’s System list when it is missing.

Related

• The Trading Pit discount codes and current promo
• Connecting a Tradovate prop account to NinjaTrader 8 — the entry naming and account-type settings in detail.
• The Rithmic connection guide — how system, gateway and account stage fit together.
• All prop firm connection guides — per-firm notes for the rest of the field.

Affordable Indicators, Inc. is not affiliated with or endorsed by Rithmic, NinjaTrader, or any prop firm or broker named here; your firm’s and broker’s own terms govern how you may use your account, so check with them first.