Glossary
NinjaTrader, Rithmic & Prop Firm Glossary
Plain-English definitions of the connectivity and copy-trading terms used across this site — the concepts behind running multiple Rithmic prop firm accounts in one NinjaTrader instance.
- Rithmic
- A low-latency futures market-data and order-routing technology used by many prop firms. NinjaTrader 8 connects to it through the Rithmic adapter (or R|Trader Pro), which is the connection PropFirmConnector is built around.
- Tradovate
- A cloud-based futures platform whose data is backed by the CQG feed. It is a separate connection path from Rithmic; some prop firms run on Tradovate instead of Rithmic, and NinjaTrader now also connects via the unified NinjaTrader–Tradovate API.
- CQG
- A futures data and connectivity provider that powers the Tradovate feed. It is distinct from Rithmic — a firm on CQG/Tradovate is not a Rithmic firm.
- Local copy trading
- Copying trades between accounts on your own machine, inside one NinjaTrader instance, with no remote server in the path. Because there is no cloud round-trip, mirroring is near-instant.
- Cloud copier
- A copier that routes orders through a remote server to mirror trades across accounts. The network round-trip adds latency compared with same-instance local copying.
- Same-instance copying
- Running every account inside a single NinjaTrader instance so a local copier maps master-to-follower from one shared account list. This is the setup PropFirmConnector enables for multiple Rithmic accounts.
- Master and follower account
- The master is the source account whose trades are copied; followers are the accounts that replicate those trades. A trade copier handles the master-to-follower mapping.
- R|Trader Pro plug-in mode
- A mode in Rithmic's R|Trader Pro desktop app that lets multiple plug-in-capable platforms on the same machine share one Rithmic connection. It is the standard way to run several Rithmic accounts in one NinjaTrader instance, since NinjaTrader's native Rithmic adapter allows only one active connection at a time.
- Evaluation (eval) account
- A paid simulated account where a trader must reach a profit target within the firm’s rules (drawdown, consistency, time) to qualify for a funded account.
- Trailing drawdown
- A maximum-loss limit that trails account equity or balance as it grows. Prop firms use intraday-trailing, end-of-day-trailing, or static drawdown variants in their evaluations.
- Consistency rule
- A prop-firm rule limiting how much of total profit may come from a single day (often around 20–30%), to discourage one-off gambles and reward steady trading.
- Micro vs mini futures
- Two contract sizes for the same market (for example MES micro vs ES mini E-mini). When copying across accounts, a copier may need to map or scale position sizes between micro and mini contracts.