How to Connect TradeDay to NinjaTrader (Tradovate)

In your TradeDay dashboard, open the account and copy its Tradovate username and password. Check twice that you are not copying your TradeDay website login — they look similar enough that this catches people out constantly, and the failure looks like a NinjaTrader fault rather than a wrong password.

Make sure you have the current version of NinjaTrader Desktop, installed from your NinjaTrader Account Dashboard. If you do not have a NinjaTrader username and cannot sign in to the dashboard, NinjaTrader documents how to download NinjaTrader Desktop without a NinjaTrader Brokerage account. You do not need to pay for a licence to trade a prop account.

Go to trader.tradovate.com and sign in with the credentials TradeDay issued you. Complete the market-data agreements and the CME subscriber certification — choose Non-Professional unless you genuinely are a professional subscriber. While you are there, enable order-flow data if you want depth of market and volumetric tools in NinjaTrader.

This is a one-time step and it is not optional: until it is done the credentials are not live on Tradovate's servers, and NinjaTrader will reject them without explaining why.

TradeDay routes market data through Tradovate, and depth of market, volumetric bars and proper bid/ask spreads all need the order-flow entitlement switched on there.

Do it now. Diagnosing it later looks exactly like a NinjaTrader problem — the connection is green, the charts draw, and the SuperDOM is simply blank — and it is not one.

A. If you do not already have a NinjaTrader account. Launch NinjaTrader Desktop and enter your TradeDay Tradovate username and password on the first login screen. You are connected straight away and your accounts appear under Control Center > Accounts — nothing else on this page applies to you.

B. If you already have a NinjaTrader account. Log in with your NinjaTrader dashboard username and password instead — not your TradeDay credentials — then carry on below to add TradeDay as a second connection.

Multi-Provider lets NinjaTrader hold more than one account type at once, and it is off by default on new installs. In the Control Center go to Tools > Settings > General, tick Multi-provider, and click OK.

Restart the platform. The Configure button then appears on the Control Center > Connections menu — if you cannot see Configure, this step has not taken effect.

Select Configure on the Connections tab. In the Available list, double-click NinjaTrader — this is the connection type that carries Tradovate prop accounts — or select it and click Add. It moves into Configured, and its properties open on the right.

Paste the Tradovate username and password from your TradeDay dashboard. Set Account Type: Simulation. This is correct for funded accounts as well as evaluations — a prop account is a simulated account as far as the platform is concerned, and the firm settles the money on its own books. "Live" means a NinjaTrader Brokerage account and will not find yours. Name the connection TradeDay and click OK.

Finally, go to Control Center > Connections and pick the connection you just created. A green indicator at the bottom left means you are connected, and your TradeDay account appears under the Accounts tab within a few seconds.