Technical Indicators

[skyholder84]

Hi, I am very new to Ninjatrader, and I'd like some help in understanding how Ninjatrader calculates TA indicator values over various interval time series.

As we know, the values of RSI, SMA (and almost every other TA indicator) are time-sensitive and differ depending on which interval time series you use (ie: 5m, 10m, 30m, hourly or daily).

Does this mean that if I use a multi-timeframe automated trading strategy which relies on 5m, 10m, 30m, hourly and daily indicators, I would have to provide 5 different data files? (And are they called IData files?)

Also, how would I get these data files to update themselves with live market data so that Ninjatrader calculates the most updated TA values in real-time (thus discarding the last historical data reading and recalculating based on the newest added figure)?

Also, this might seem like a stupid question to ask, but I'm really, really new to NT, so please bear with me! Prior to finding out about NT, I was considering writing my own TA equations, but it seems that NT provides a huge TA indicator class library. Is this class library available to an external 3rd party C#.NET program?

And I've read somewhere that since NT has it's own strategy creation platform, I might not need to hard-code my trading strategy in an external 3rd party program written in C#.NET. Is this correct?

Some kind guidance would be hugely appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[NinjaTrader_Austin]

Skyholder, welcome to the forums!

There are many questions in your post, so hopefully I can answer them all.

All NinjaTrader strategies and indicators operate based off of bars, which can be volume based, time based, tick based, etc. These bars are what all calculations are run off of.

You do not have to provide five different data files, you just have to connect to a supported data provider, which will then allow your charts to be backfilled and to accept incoming data. Once you are connected and bring up a chart, the data will stream in without you having to do anything. Your indicators/strategies will also operate off of these new ticks and recalculate on every tick if CalculateOnBarClose = false.

If you have your strategy/indicator set to CalculateOnBarClose = true, the calculations will only update once per bar.

NinjaTrader does indeed have it's own strategy creating platform, so it is not necessary to re-invent the wheel and create your own platform. You can use the NinjaScript codes to develop strategies and indicators however you wish.

Unfortunately the TA indicators in NT are not available to 3rd party applications.

Please take a look at some of the resources available in the help guide, like the informative videos and starting NinjaScript development.