Price of contract

[Eddie De Meira]

Hi,

I've been trying to develop an automatic position size within my code and the way I intend to program this is by taking the available amount in cash of my account and dividing by the contract price to see how many contracts I am able to enter with.
For instance, let's say I have $5000 in my account and each contract costs $700, hence the number of contracts would be 5000/700 = 7 contracts.
I know how to get the cash value of the account by using Account.Get(AccountItem.CashValue, Currency.UsDollar), but then how can I get the price of each contract for a particular instrument and use this value as a divisor for the cash?

Thanks a lot,
Eddie

[bltdavid]

Are you talking about the Intraday Margin requirements imposed on each contract by your broker?

Who's your broker?

[Eddie De Meira]

Yes, my broker is GFF/Ironbeam

[bltdavid]

You're wading into the deep dark world of margins, and it can get a bit tricky.

The Initial Margin is set by the exchange (this is the amount you need to hold the
security "overnight", which is typically just the 1-hour break in-between sessions).

Intraday Margin is a broker thing and is subject to change.

Good introduction here.

Study Account information here and here.
If this code is for a Strategy, study this, too.

I presume if your broker changes the Intraday Margin for your account (which
can happen in times of high volatility), the idea is that OnAccountItemUpdate
would tell you such a change has occurred -- but I'm not sure if that's true, or
how reliable it would be for your broker, so NT Support will need to confirm.

Good luck!

PS: It might be faster & wiser to just create an input parameter and define
the value as a property of your Strategy. Then check with your broker on
the current Intraday Margin for the instrument you wish to trade ... and just
enter the value into the property grid when setting up your strategy.

[bltdavid]

The Initial Margin is set by the exchange (this is the amount you need to hold the
security "overnight", which is typically just the 1-hour break in-between sessions).

Just an fyi --
Saying "overnight" is archaic -- today's terminology is "past the close".

[Eddie De Meira]

PS: It might be faster & wiser to just create an input parameter and define
the value as a property of your Strategy. Then check with your broker on
the current Intraday Margin for the instrument you wish to trade ... and just
enter the value into the property grid when setting up your strategy.

Thanks a lot bltdavid
Actually, I've already done that. I placed the position size into a property and change it manually every time.
The ideal condition though, would be the program updating this automatically (since it's an automated strategy, I should not have to input anything, right!?!), but now, I am not so sure this would be safe enough to leave it running on its own. If this is possible through some NT object it would be the ultimate for me, but even so, I would monitor its behavior for a while until I make sure it works.

Thank you so much for all the links, I will make sure to visit them all. Meanwhile, I think someone from Tech Support may reply and add to this post, I will be waiting.

[bltdavid]

You're welcome.

Another question for Support becomes obvious after studying
the organization of the Account object.

To Support:
OP wants IntradayMargin on a per instrument basis, so that he can
perform his position sizing calculations. But it looks like that item value
available in Account (also called IntradayMargin) does not represent
a per instrument value, but some kind of aggregate value for the entire
account, is that correct? I mean, how does that value relate to the per
instrument value the OP seeks?

[NinjaTrader_ChelseaB]

Hello Eddie and bltdavid,

There is nothing supported to get the equivalent of what would be in the Risk templates (which can be applied to Sim accounts) for individual instruments.

I am happy to submit a feature request on this and will provide a tracking ID once I have received this.

[Eddie De Meira]

Sounds good to me
Thanks a lot Chelsea.

[NinjaTrader_ChelseaB]

Hello,

This request for Intra-day margin per instrument is being tracked with ID# SFT-5244.

Please note, we receive many requests and cannot reasonably implement all requested features or changes. Interest is tracked internally and if enough interest is tracked, it would be weighed against how feasible it would be to make those changes to consider implementing, so we cannot offer an ETA or promise of fulfillment.

When new features are implemented, they will be listed in the Release Notes page of the Help Guide. The ID number may be different than the internal feature request tracking ID, but the description of the feature will let you know if that feature has been implemented.

Release Notes - https://ninjatrader.com/support/help...ease_notes.htm