TopTrades
Copy Trades from Traders around the World
TopTrades
cTrader has built a loyal following among traders who want raw ECN pricing, Level II order book visibility, and the ability to automate strategies through cBots written in C#. NinjaTrader, meanwhile, remains the go-to platform for trading futures directly on an exchange. Plenty of cTrader users eventually want the same trade ideas they're running on an ECN Forex account to also play out as exchange-cleared futures contracts — without sitting at two screens copying every order by hand.
A cTrader to NinjaTrader trade copier handles that automatically. The cTrader account becomes the source, and every order it generates — whether placed manually or fired by a cBot — gets mirrored into NinjaTrader as a futures position, sized and matched to the right contract. This guide covers how that specific direction works, why traders set it up this way, and how to build it with the TopTrades Trade Copier.
Table of contents:
This setup falls under the same umbrella as the configurations covered in our trade copier overview and cross-platform copy trading explained, but sending ECN trades into a futures account brings its own set of details to work through.
| Role | Platform | What Happens There |
|---|---|---|
| Source | cTrader | Order is placed manually or by a cBot |
| Destination | NinjaTrader | Matching futures contract is executed |
From the moment an order fills on cTrader, every change to that position — stop adjustments, partial closes, scale-outs, or a full exit — gets reproduced on the NinjaTrader side for as long as the trade stays open.
Traders choose this particular direction for a handful of recurring reasons:
cTrader brokers can offer either netting-style or hedging-style accounts, and the difference matters here. A netting account keeps a single combined position per instrument, which is straightforward for a copier to read. A hedging account can hold several separate positions on the same symbol at once — for example, two opposing trades on XAUUSD open simultaneously — and the copier needs to track each one individually rather than collapsing them into a single net figure. Knowing which account type sits on the source side before connecting everything avoids confusing partial closes with brand-new trades.
A cBot — or the trader manually — opens a sell position on US30 with an attached stop and target.
The moment the position is confirmed, the copier reads the symbol, direction, and volume, then determines the equivalent futures contract and how many contracts that volume should translate to.
The translated order routes through the trader's futures data feed and fills on the exchange, with later stop changes, partial closes, or a full exit kept synchronized for the duration of the trade.
| Event | On cTrader (Source) | On NinjaTrader (Destination) |
|---|---|---|
| Entry | Sell 0.40 lot US30 | Sell matching number of YM contracts |
| Stop adjusted | Moved by cBot or trader | Mirrored on the futures order |
| Scale-out | 0.10 lot closed | Proportional contracts closed |
| Exit | Position flat | Futures contract closed |
cTrader brokers don't all label instruments the same way, and futures contracts use exchange ticker symbols rather than CFD-style names, so this mapping step is where a lot of the setup work happens.
| cTrader Symbol | Underlying Market | NinjaTrader Futures Contract |
|---|---|---|
| US100 / NAS100 | Nasdaq 100 | NQ |
| US30 | Dow Jones | YM |
| US500 | S&P 500 | ES |
| XAUUSD | Gold | GC |
| USOIL / WTI | Crude Oil | CL |
Because one cTrader broker might call an instrument US100 while another lists it as NAS100 or adds its own suffix, the TopTrades Trade Copier supports configurable mapping so the right futures contract is always selected, regardless of which broker the source account runs on.
cTrader expresses position size as volume — broadly comparable to lots, but often adjustable in much smaller increments than NinjaTrader's futures contracts allow. A futures contract can't be split into fractions, so however the conversion is set up, it eventually has to land on a whole number.
Common methods for handling that include:
| cTrader Source | Conversion Approach | NinjaTrader Destination |
|---|---|---|
| 1.00 Lot US100 | Fixed Ratio | 2 NQ Contracts |
| 0.20 Lot USOIL | Rounded | 1 CL Contract |
| 1.50 Lot XAUUSD | Balance-Based | Variable GC Contracts |
Since rounding is unavoidable, the futures position will often carry slightly different dollar risk than the original cTrader trade — a detail worth building into your risk management approach rather than assuming the two accounts always move in exact proportion.
| Method | Description | Typical Fit |
|---|---|---|
| Local | cTrader and NinjaTrader installed on one machine or VPS | Simpler day-to-day management |
| Remote | Each platform connects independently, potentially from different servers | The norm here, since the ECN broker and futures broker are unrelated companies |
Most traders end up running this remotely by default — the cTrader terminal talks to its ECN broker while the NinjaTrader terminal talks separately to a futures data feed like Rithmic or Tradovate — even if both happen to be hosted on the same physical server.
This pairing crosses two different execution philosophies: cTrader's broker-matched ECN fills and NinjaTrader's exchange order-book fills. Total delay between the two depends on:
Wider gaps between the two fills tend to show up as trade copier slippage, so it's worth spot-checking fill prices on both accounts now and then, particularly after a fast news-driven move.
Keeping a cTrader terminal and a NinjaTrader terminal online at the same time, connected to two separate brokers, is much easier on a Virtual Private Server than on a home computer that might lose power or internet at the wrong moment.
Our guide on why professional traders use VPS servers covers picking the right specs and server location for this kind of setup.
For a broader look at this topic, see Copy Trading Risk Management.
A trader with a working cAlgo strategy can route its signals into NinjaTrader to trade futures directly, rather than porting the entire codebase into NinjaScript.
Some traders read cTrader's Level II depth purely for timing, then let the copier carry the actual position in a futures contract once they've decided to act.
A cTrader strategy with a track record can find new followers among futures traders, adding to the income potential discussed in Can You Make Money Copy Trading?
As an ECN account grows, some traders gradually shift larger trades over to futures execution while keeping smaller or more frequent trades on cTrader itself.
| Factor | cTrader → NinjaTrader | NinjaTrader → cTrader |
|---|---|---|
| Signal source | cBot (cAlgo/C#) or manual ECN trade | Manual or NinjaScript-driven futures trade |
| Sizing conversion | Volume rounded into whole contracts | Contracts scaled into fractional volume |
| Execution venue on destination | Regulated futures exchange | ECN-style broker matching |
| Typical motivation | Exchange transparency, cBot reuse, cost at volume | Tighter spreads, Level II access, broader ECN audience |
For the other direction in full detail, see our guide on the NinjaTrader to cTrader trade copier.
Confirm both terminals are connected, then check whether the symbol you traded actually has a mapping configured — an unmapped instrument is the most frequent reason nothing shows up on the futures side.
Review your conversion ratio or rounding rule. Small-volume trades can round down to zero contracts if the ratio isn't tuned to the size you're actually trading.
Update the mapping to the new front-month contract whenever NinjaTrader rolls forward — this is the single most common maintenance task in this kind of setup.
Check the connection quality to both the ECN broker and the futures data feed, and consider whether hosting both terminals closer together — or closer to their respective brokers — would help.
For platform-specific configuration details, see the full cTrader Trade Copier guide and NinjaTrader Trade Copier guide.
Traders who have no interest in futures markets and plan to stay entirely within ECN Forex/CFD trading generally won't need this particular configuration — a standard same-platform trade copier covers that use case more directly.
The TopTrades Trade Copier is built to handle this exact pairing as part of its full cross-platform lineup, which also includes MetaTrader and Sierra Chart.
The TopTrades network also helps cTrader-based strategies get discovered by traders browsing NinjaTrader and futures-focused content — more on that in Social Trading: The Future of Retail Investing.
Because this setup touches two brokers, two pieces of trading software, and a position-sizing conversion that has to round to whole numbers, it's worth resisting the urge to flip straight to live trading once everything looks connected. A short testing period on demo or sim accounts tends to catch the issues that are tedious to fix after the fact:
Once those checks come back clean across a few different market conditions, moving to live capital carries far less risk of a configuration surprise showing up on a real position.
Yes. Once both accounts are connected and the relevant symbol is mapped, any order the cBot places — or a trade you enter manually — gets translated into a futures order on NinjaTrader.
Through a configured ratio or rounding rule, since volume and contracts use different scales and contracts can't be fractional.
No — both netting and hedging accounts can act as the source, but hedging accounts need the copier to track multiple simultaneous positions per symbol rather than a single net figure.
Not strictly, but it's the practical standard, since the cTrader and NinjaTrader terminals connect to two separate brokers and need to stay online at the same time.
The futures symbol rolls to the next contract month while the cTrader symbol stays the same, so the mapping should be reviewed and updated at each rollover.
Yes — copying from NinjaTrader into cTrader is the more commonly discussed direction, covered in our guide on the NinjaTrader to cTrader trade copier.
Many traders connect a personal cTrader account to a funded NinjaTrader account this way, but always confirm copy-trading is permitted under your specific funding program's terms first.
No. The copier itself doesn't require any coding — it simply reads whatever orders appear on the cTrader account, whether they were placed manually or generated by a cBot someone else built.
Watch the video demonstration to see the trade copier in action.
A cTrader to NinjaTrader trade copier lets an ECN-based strategy — whether run manually or through a cBot — extend onto a regulated futures exchange without doubling the workload. The setup requires a bit more care than copying within a single platform, particularly around volume-to-contract conversion and keeping symbol mappings current through contract rollovers, but it opens the door to exchange-cleared execution, a new pool of followers, and a practical way to scale a proven ECN strategy into futures markets.
Ready to connect your cTrader and NinjaTrader accounts? Check out the TopTrades Trade Copier, browse more guides on the TopTrades blog, visit the FAQ page, or create a free TopTrades account. Need help with your specific configuration? Contact the TopTrades team and we'll get you set up.
TopTrades