Discount Trading is a MotiveWave broker offering low day trading margins, Rithmic order routing, and full support for MotiveWave's advanced charting, Elliott Wave, and order flow tools.
MotiveWave is a professional-grade charting, analysis, and trading platform built for traders who want serious analytical depth without sacrificing usability. Whether you trade Elliott Wave, hunt order flow, scan for harmonic patterns, or just want one of the cleanest charting experiences in the industry, MotiveWave has an edition designed to fit your style and budget.
MotiveWave runs natively on Windows, macOS, and Linux — no virtualization, no compromises — making it one of the few professional trading platforms that treats Mac users as first-class citizens. Pair it with Discount Trading for low day trading margins and rock-solid Rithmic order routing, and you have a trading setup that competes with any institutional desk.
Want to try it before you buy? MotiveWave offers a 14-day free trial of the Ultimate Edition with full access to every feature. No credit card required.
MotiveWave was built around Elliott Wave from day one, and it shows. The platform offers three different approaches to wave analysis: manual for traders who want to plot every count themselves, semi-automatic using the Auto Analyzer, and fully automatic with the Auto Elliott Wave Study that recalculates wave counts in real time as new bars form. All Elliott Wave patterns and degrees are supported, with built-in rule and guideline validation that warns you when a count violates Elliott's principles.
The Order Flow, Professional, and Ultimate editions ship with a full Order Flow Studies Pack — including Volume Imprint, Cumulative Delta, Big Trades Study, DOM Power, Speed of Tape, and TPO (Time Price Opportunity) profiles. Combined with MotiveWave's Advanced DOM/MBO, traders get pro-grade tools for reading market structure and identifying momentum shifts at the price-by-price level.
Every edition (including the free Community Edition) includes 280+ built-in studies, plus full sets of analysis tools: trend lines, Fibonacci retracement/extension/expansion/circles/arcs/fans, channels, forks, regression tools, support/resistance zones, and more. Highly customizable charts let you create the exact analytical environment you need.
MotiveWave includes automated pattern recognition for harmonic patterns — Gartley, Butterfly, Crab, Bat, Shark, Cypher, AB=CD, and 5-0 patterns are detected and plotted automatically. The Pattern Recognition Scanner lets you sweep across multiple symbols and timeframes looking for setups, and the Study Scanner does the same for indicator-based criteria. Available in Professional and Ultimate editions.
Build, test, and deploy automated trading strategies using MotiveWave's Java SDK. The Professional and Ultimate editions include a full backtesting engine with optimization (genetic and exhaustive), walk-forward testing, and trade simulation. Source code for built-in strategies can be made available on request, giving you a head start on writing your own.
Practice your trading or test new ideas using MotiveWave's Replay Mode — step forward tick-by-tick or bar-by-bar through historical data, with the option to simulate real delays. Every edition supports Replay Mode, including the free Community Edition.
MotiveWave runs on Windows, macOS (including Apple Silicon M1/M2/M3/M4), and Linux without virtualization layers. Mac traders consistently report excellent performance and battery life — MotiveWave is one of the few trading platforms that genuinely takes advantage of Apple Silicon's efficiency.
MotiveWave packs deep analysis and execution into one platform. Here are the pieces futures traders lean on most:
Automated and semi-automatic wave counting, the EW Scanner, plus Fibonacci, Gartley/harmonic, and Gann tools built into the core — not bolted on.
Footprint (Volume Imprint), Volume Profile, TPO/Market Profile, and Cumulative Delta in the Order Flow edition.
280+ built-in studies, highly customizable charts, full drawing tools, and multiple chart and bar types.
A full-featured price ladder with one-click trading, advanced DOM/MBO, and complete order management.
Build custom studies and strategies in Java; backtest with genetic and exhaustive optimization and walk-forward testing.
Bar-by-bar replay mode and trade simulation to practice and refine setups on historical data.
A Java-based platform with native macOS support alongside Windows and Linux — no virtual machine needed.
Connects to 30+ brokers and data feeds. At Discount Trading your futures route through Rithmic.
Trade from anywhere with the MotiveWave mobile app for iOS and Android. Real-time charts, full order management, watch lists, DOM, and account info — all synced with your desktop workspace. Available with all paid editions at no additional cost.
MotiveWave mobile app on iPhone — trade MES, MCL, and other futures contracts on the go.
If you’re new to MotiveWave, the platform is built around a few key concepts that make it easy to keep your charts, watch lists, orders, and analysis organized in one place.
The console is your main window. Everything — charts, watch lists, DOM, account info, news — lives inside it. Out of the box, MotiveWave gives you a default layout to get started, and you can fully customize it from there. With integrated trading, you can place and adjust orders directly from the console without jumping between windows.
Pages let you organize different layouts within a single console window. Switch between pages using the tab bar at the bottom — one page for your day-trading setup, another for swing analysis, another for the markets you’re scanning. Add, remove, or modify pages to fit how you actually trade.
Pick from several built-in page layouts, or click and drag panel tabs to arrange them however you like. Stack panels on top of each other and click between them, or split them out into separate areas. MotiveWave also supports unlimited workspaces, so you can keep separate setups for different brokers or data feeds without them stepping on each other.
You can place orders directly from any chart — click and drag order labels to adjust prices, right-click for additional options, or use the integrated Trade Panel on the side of the chart. One-click orders, attached orders (brackets), and order presets are all built in. The Depth of Market window can be docked into a chart panel or pulled out as its own window.
If Elliott Wave is your primary methodology, MotiveWave is genuinely in a class of its own. Most platforms treat wave analysis as an afterthought — a few drawing tools and some Fibonacci ratios bolted on. MotiveWave was built around it.
MotiveWave supports every Elliott Wave pattern and degree referenced in Elliott Wave Principle: Key to Market Behavior by A.J. Frost and Robert R. Prechter Jr. — the foundational text on Elliott Wave Theory. You can compose or decompose wave formations across multiple levels and run time and ratio analysis to project future price direction.
Every Elliott Wave rule and guideline is built into the platform. When you place a wave count manually, MotiveWave validates it against the rules in real time and warns you if a placement violates one (for example, Wave 2 retracing more than 100% of Wave 1, or Wave 3 being the shortest of the impulse waves). This dramatically shortens the learning curve and makes you more confident in your counts.
Fibonacci ratios between waves are essential for forecasting price movements. MotiveWave supports all price and time ratios, displays multiple ratios simultaneously, and gives you keyboard shortcuts for the ones you use most.
Use fully manual wave plotting if you want complete control. Use the Auto Analyzer for a static automated count you can then refine. Or use the Auto Elliott Wave Study (Ultimate Edition) for fully dynamic wave counts that recalculate in real time as new bars form. The Elliott Wave Scanner sweeps multiple symbols looking for specific wave conditions.
MotiveWave’s Order Flow edition turns the platform into a serious order-flow workstation. Footprint charts — MotiveWave calls them Volume Imprint — show the bid and ask volume traded at every price inside each bar, so you can see where aggressive buyers and sellers actually met. Volume Profile builds session, visible-range, and composite profiles with the value area and point of control marked, and TPO / Market Profile charts lay out time-at-price structure for reading acceptance and rejection.
Cumulative Delta tracks the running difference between aggressive buying and selling, while the Advanced DOM adds a depth-of-market ladder with market-by-order (MBO) detail and one-click execution. Because all of this lives in the same workspace as MotiveWave’s charting and Elliott Wave tools, you can read structure and participation side by side instead of jumping between programs.
The Trading and Ultimate editions include a full strategy backtesting engine. You can test automated strategies against historical data with both genetic and exhaustive optimization, run walk-forward testing, and validate ideas in trade simulation before putting real money behind them.
Strategies and custom studies are written in Java through MotiveWave’s SDK, which exposes the platform’s data and order-management functions. Source code for several built-in strategies can be requested, so you start from a working example rather than from scratch. For traders moving from discretionary to systematic, the whole loop — analyze, code, backtest, and trade — stays inside one platform with no exporting data elsewhere.
MotiveWave offers two purchasing models for paid editions: a one-time Lifetime License or an ongoing Lease.
A Lifetime License includes 1 year of updates and support from purchase. After that first year, you keep using whatever version is current at the time and can use it indefinitely — you just won’t receive new features or support unless you renew. Renewal pricing varies by edition.
A Lease (monthly, quarterly, or annual) keeps you on the latest version with full support for as long as the lease is active. Up to 6 months of lease payments can later be applied toward a full Lifetime License purchase if you decide to switch.
No credit card required. Full access to every Ultimate Edition feature.
Request Free DemoMotiveWave is sold in tiered editions so you can pay only for the features you actually use. Each edition builds on the one before it, and you can upgrade later for the price difference. All paid editions include 1 year of updates and support; lifetime licenses keep that version forever, while leases always run on the latest release.
Full charting platform with 280+ studies, drawing tools, replay mode, and trade simulation.
Adds live trading, basic DOM, harmonic and Gann tool packs, and cloud workspaces.
Standard plus the full Order Flow Studies Pack and Advanced DOM/MBO.
Standard plus full Elliott Wave manual and semi-automatic tools.
Adds strategy backtesting, scanners, multiple broker connections, and the Power Trading Pack.
The complete platform — Professional plus the full Elliott Wave suite, Auto EW Study, EW Scanner, and Hurst Cycles.
MotiveWave is broker and data feed neutral — you can connect it to any of 30+ supported brokers and data services. With Discount Trading, MotiveWave traders typically run on Rithmic for ultra-low-latency order routing, or CQG if your strategy benefits from CQG's data feed.
Both routing options give you direct access to all the major futures exchanges — CME, CBOT, NYMEX, COMEX, GLOBEX, and select EUREX products — with the same low day trading margins and transparent commissions Discount Trading offers across every platform we support.
Need help getting MotiveWave set up with your data feed? Our trade desk can walk you through the connection setup and answer any platform questions. Call +1-219-769-0366 or 1-800-747-1420.
We set up MotiveWave on Rithmic routing all the time and know the editions, the order-flow pack, and how to get your license connected to your account.
We’ll get you a MotiveWave demo with simulated trading and live data so you can test the charts and order-flow tools before going live.
$0.49 or less per contract commission on standard futures and $0.20 or less per contract commission on micro index futuresiExchange, clearing, and regulatory fees apply..
Trade actively and you may qualify to have your MotiveWave platform costs covered through your account. Talk to us before you buy a license.
Get a person on the line during U.S. and Globex hours for account questions, platform connection issues, or to place a trade if your connection drops.
Your MotiveWave orders route through Rithmic’s co-located servers at CME Aurora for fast, reliable execution.
MotiveWave is a professional charting and trading platform built around Elliott Wave, Fibonacci, Gann, and harmonic pattern analysis, with 280+ studies, a full order-flow pack, and a Java strategy SDK. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux and connects to your Discount Trading futures account through Rithmic.
The Order Flow edition adds the Order Flow Studies Pack — footprint/Volume Imprint, Volume Profile, TPO, and Cumulative Delta — plus the advanced DOM/MBO on top of the Standard edition. If you also want strategy backtesting, step up to the Trading or Ultimate edition.
Yes. MotiveWave is one of the few professional trading platforms with native macOS support, alongside Windows and Linux, because it’s built on Java. You don’t need a Windows virtual machine to run it on a Mac.
Active traders can qualify to have their MotiveWave platform costs covered through their Discount Trading account. Talk to us about your trading volume before you purchase a license and we’ll let you know whether you qualify.
MotiveWave sells each edition as either a one-time lifetime license or a lower-cost monthly or annual lease. A lifetime license is a single up-front payment you keep; a lease spreads the cost out over time. We can walk through which makes sense for the edition you need.
Yes. The Trading and Ultimate editions include a backtesting engine and let you build automated strategies in Java using MotiveWave’s SDK, with genetic and exhaustive optimization and walk-forward testing.
Once your account is funded, you install MotiveWave, choose your edition, and connect it to your Discount Trading futures account through Rithmic. We provide the connection details and can walk you through the setup during business hours.
Fill out the form below and we'll get you set up with a free 14-day MotiveWave trial.
Low day trading marginsiLeverage can work for you as well as against you - it magnifies gains as well as losses.. Rithmic routing. Full MotiveWave platform support. Open your account today.
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