How to compare quote-feed speed in New Hope PRO

Connect your own feed, compare it with a broker and record the ticks. This guide explains how to turn that recording into a useful comparison, with a worked example you can check yourself.

A busy price window is not enough to identify a fast feed. The useful question is more specific: which connection shows a comparable price change first on the server where your software runs? The answer can vary with the instrument, broker, connection and time of day.

New Hope PRO includes a tool for testing quote feeds and recording feed and broker ticks. You can compare your own feed with a broker, two feeds with each other, or quotes from two brokers. This article focuses on preparing the comparison and reading its results. The guide to TPS and quote latency explains why update frequency alone does not answer the speed question.

1. Decide what you are comparing

Start with one instrument and one clearly defined pair. Call the connections Feed A and Broker B, for example. Record the actual broker symbols, account environment, connection type, VPS location and observation period. Keep the software version with your notes so you can repeat the test later.

Check that both symbols describe the same underlying instrument and comparable contract. A cash instrument and a future are not interchangeable. Compare Bid with Bid and Ask with Ask; do not compare one stream's Bid with the other's Last price. Agree how repeated messages and unchanged prices will be counted.

Quote frequency still matters, but it is a separate measurement. If A delivers 12,000 messages in 60 seconds, its average message rate is 200 per second. That calculation says nothing about whether a particular change reached A before B. For a background explanation, see tick data versus candles.

2. Connect the pair and record ticks

1. Connect your own price feed to New Hope PRO. Use the connection details supported by your configuration. Confirm compatibility before assuming an arbitrary data service will work.

2. Connect the broker you want to compare. Check the intended account and server. A connection label alone does not establish that you selected the correct environment.

3. Map the instrument in both connections. Confirm the symbols, price precision and the intended role of each stream.

4. Enable tick recording for the comparison. Check that data from both connections is being recorded. Keep any connection errors or gaps with the record.

5. Observe a defined period. Start with an uninterrupted sample, then repeat under other market conditions. Keep these periods separate in the report.

6. Review the recorded changes. Identify comparable events, calculate their arrival difference and record how often each connection leads.

The New Hope PRO installation and first-launch manual covers connections, instrument mapping and tick recording. The recording demonstration starts at 41:01. Recording and comparison should be configured deliberately; this guide is not an instruction to enable live order execution.

3. Use a comparable clock and timestamp

For a relative arrival comparison, record both streams on the same server using the same receiving-time basis. Verify what the timestamps actually represent. A provider's event time, a terminal's time and your application's receipt time describe different points in the path. Converting them to the same time zone does not synchronize the clocks.

If the recording does not expose comparable receive timestamps or sufficient resolution, it cannot support a precise millisecond claim. Check the recording format before calculating. Measuring absolute source-to-receiver latency additionally requires suitable source timestamps and clock synchronization, as discussed in IETF RFC 7679.

A same-server result describes the two complete paths as observed by that setup, including their adapters and local processing. It does not isolate network delay or establish a universal ranking of liquidity providers.

4. Match the price change before subtracting the times

Do not simply subtract the time of tick 100 in A from tick 100 in B. One feed may send more messages, aggregate updates or price the instrument differently. The same numerical price can also recur many times.

Prefer an identifiable common event when one exists. Otherwise define and inspect a consistent matching rule using price side, movement, sequence and a bounded time window. Count ambiguous or unmatched observations separately. A cross-broker price divergence can be worth studying, but without reliable matching it is a divergence observation, not a proven delivery delay.

For the teaching example below, matching is known by construction: each labelled event represents the same synthetic Bid and Ask change delivered to A and B. The event IDs are explanatory labels, not a claimed field exported by New Hope PRO.

Worked example: which feed arrived first?

All numbers below are synthetic. They demonstrate the calculation and are not measurements of New Hope feeds, LMAX or any broker. Times are milliseconds from one shared recording start, using a common receiver clock. The example assumes 1 ms recorded resolution.

Arrival difference Δ = time received by B − time received by A. Positive: A arrived first. Negative: B arrived first. Zero: a tie at the recorded precision.

Ten matched synthetic quote changes

Event 1 gives 112 − 100 = +12 ms, so A arrives first. Event 3 gives 396 − 400 = -4 ms, so B arrives first.

Synthetic teaching data. Bars to the right of zero mean A arrived first; bars to the left mean B arrived first.

Across all ten events, A leads 7 times, B leads 2 times and one event is tied. Sorted differences are -7, -4, 0, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 15, 20 ms. The median is (8 + 9) / 2 = +8.5 ms. This is the median signed arrival difference across the entire sample, including B's leads and the tie.

The conclusion is narrow: A usually leads in this synthetic sample, but not on every event. Ten constructed events explain the arithmetic; they do not establish statistical confidence or a live trading advantage.

5. Turn a recording into a useful test report

Report the instrument, setup and period alongside the result. Include the number of matched events, unmatched changes, ties, disconnections and stale-quote periods. State your matching rule and timestamp precision. Keep the raw observations so another person can reproduce the calculation.

Show both the typical arrival difference and variation. A positive median can coexist with long periods where the other feed leads. Break results down by session and instrument rather than hiding those differences inside one average. For larger samples, a distribution or percentiles adds context; ten events are too few for a meaningful tail-performance claim.

When changing a VPS or connection, change one factor at a time and repeat the same procedure. If you use a separate MT5-based recorder, check its counting method: MetaQuotes explains that OnTick notifications need not represent every individual received tick.

How this helps you use New Hope PRO

The same workflow applies to your feed versus a broker, two external feeds, or two broker connections. Let the observations determine which stream acts as the faster reference in that configuration. A faster quote can reveal a temporary price difference; spread, fees, order acceptance and execution still determine whether a trade is possible and its outcome.

New Hope PRO also includes integrated fast quotes. These and software updates are included without an additional fee in the full package, and during the valid one-month evaluation. The composition and provider identities of the built-in multifeed remain proprietary. You can assess the connection you receive without knowing its internal supplier list.

Read about New Hope Fast Feed or explore the New Hope PRO package. To discuss a comparison, send us your platform, instrument and VPS location. Do not include passwords or API secrets. We can clarify the appropriate connection and recording procedure for your configuration.