Why we built EliteXCharts, a native order flow platform

Every futures day trader knows the setup. The chart lives in one program, the DOM in another, the journal in a spreadsheet you fill in at night, and the risk “manager” is a sticky note on the monitor that says stop after two losses. The footprint, if you have one, came as a separate module with its own bill.

Each of those pieces works on its own. The trouble lives in the gaps between them.

We trade NQ and ES every day, and that is where our own mistakes kept happening. Not in the reading. In the gaps. An order typed on the wrong account because the DOM and the chart disagreed about which one was selected. A daily loss limit that existed only as a promise to ourselves, broken on exactly the day it mattered. A losing trade that never got reviewed because rebuilding it meant scrolling back through a chart and guessing where the entries were. EliteXCharts is the platform we wanted for that loop: read the auction, execute, stay inside the rules, review. One native app for Windows and macOS.

Reading: the footprint as the main screen

Order flow is the reason the platform exists, so the footprint got the most attention. Each candle opens into its price levels with bid × ask, delta and volume columns, which you can switch on, off or mirror to the other side. The POC of each candle is outlined and the 70% value area is drawn with labeled lines. Diagonal imbalances use the ratio you choose, and a run of stacked imbalances gets a thicker border so it stands out at a glance.

Two details came straight from our own frustration. Tick aggregation merges several price levels into one cell, so the numbers stay legible on a fast NQ morning without zooming in until the chart shows three candles. And once the layout fits how you read, you save it as the default for every chart and stop configuring it again.

Around the footprint sit the rest of the order flow tools: volume profile by session or by range, anchored VWAP, big trades, absorption marks, the DOM and Times & Trades. All of it runs on the data from your own Rithmic account. The platform requires one: quotes and orders travel through your own account with your own firm, and EliteXCharts stays out of that relationship. Your prop firm or broker gives you the login, and connecting it is covered in the Getting started section of the manual.

Execution: managing the whole trade on the chart

Clicking an order onto a candle is the easy part. Most platforms stop there.

In EliteXCharts the order line on the chart is where you manage the trade. You can split the target or the stop into partial exits right on that line. A pending order is born with its OCO attached, and you can adjust the target and the stop before it even fills. Drag any of it and the change goes to the broker. The connection to Rithmic is direct, through R|Protocol, with no bridge in the middle.

Two features answer problems that are specific to prop firm trading. Cross Trade lets you read the market on NQ or ES, where the liquidity is, and send the order to MNQ or MES. Copy Trading has a master account execute while the other accounts follow at their own scale, with each account’s status on screen. If you run several evaluations at once, that replaces a lot of nervous double-clicking. The chart trading page shows the details.

Risk: a rule that actually stops the order

This is the part we care about most, and the one where we have the strongest opinion.

A risk manager that shows a warning is a suggestion. On a good day you never need it. On a bad day, the trader in front of the screen clicks the warning away, because a bad day is precisely when judgment goes. So the risk manager works as a lock: you set a maximum daily loss, a contract cap, the hours you are allowed to trade and a limit on consecutive stops, and an order that breaks a rule never leaves the platform. Once a rule is armed it cannot be switched off mid-session; it stays in force until the risk manager’s daily reset, which the feature sets at 6:00 PM ET. There is also a panic button in the corner of the chart: two clicks cancel everything, flatten the position and lock the account until that same reset.

That rigidity annoys people the first week. It is supposed to.

None of this replaces a plan. The lock enforces the rules you wrote, and only those. If the rules are loose, or the plan behind them is weak, the platform will faithfully protect a bad idea. What it does take away is the option of breaking your own rule in the heat of the moment, and that option is the one that ends evaluations.

Review: replay instead of memory

Most traders review badly because reviewing is slow. Rebuilding a trade from screenshots and a fill list takes longer than the trade did.

Every trade lands in the Trading Journal by itself, from real or simulated accounts, live or in replay, with a profit calendar, statistics and a playbook where you tag each trade with its setup. Press ► on any trade in the Journal and it plays back tick by tick from the real data, at the speed you choose, on the chart type you choose and with your indicators on it. You see the entry, the management and the exit again without a screen recorder.

For practice, Market Replay runs any past session again, tick by tick, with simulated execution and up to two symbols on the same clock. With your Rithmic account connected, the past sessions arrive ready-made from the cloud; you can stop a replay and pick it up on another day without a 90-day limit, and the trades you take there also go to the Journal under the replayed date. The trade replay page covers how the Journal and the replay connect.

What EliteXCharts does not do

It does not trade for you, and it does not tell you what to buy. Every level, imbalance and alert on the screen is information about the auction; the decision stays with you.

Everything runs through your Rithmic login, so an outage on your firm’s side stops the platform too, and that is a call to the firm rather than a setting to change. And it is built for futures traders who read order flow. If what you want is a chart for stocks or a social feed of trade ideas, other tools will serve you better.

If it does fit the way you trade, the plans and the current terms are on the pricing page.

Futures trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for every investor. EliteXCharts is a software tool, and trading decisions are yours.