Refer to the last candle of a type -- need help

[lunardiplomacy]

Hello all,

I want to be able to refer to the last green or red candle that occurred while I am in a long or short position respectively, such that I am able to deploy actions upon said candle. For example, if I am in a long position, I want my code to reference the last green candle after every bar close and place a stop loss at the open of said candle.

I know I can refer x bars back, but in this scenario I have no way of knowing how many bars back the last green candle occurred, therefore I can't refer to it.

Is there a way I can do this in the strategy builder? That would be my preference, as I am not a strong programmer, but if manual code is my only option then bring it on, thank you.

[Emma1]

https://ninjatrader.com/support/forum/forum/ninjatrader-8/indicator-development/99768-determining-time-stamp-of-the-last-bar-on-a-chart

[lunardiplomacy]

https://ninjatrader.com/support/foru...bar-on-a-chart

I'm sorry, but what does this obscure bug have to do with what I'm asking? Could you give me a little more to go on, please?

Thank you.

[NinjaTrader_ChrisL]

Hi, lunardiplomacy, thanks for your post.

To check if a bar is green would be if(Close[0] > Open[0]). When that condition occurs, save CurrentBar to a variable. Then you can reference that variable when Position.MarketPosition == MarketPosition.Long.

To check if you have a green bar and the position is long if would be written:

if(Position.MarketPosition == MarketPosition.Long)
{
    if(Close[0] > Open[0])
    {

    }
}

Best regards,

-ChrisL

[lunardiplomacy]

Hi, lunardiplomacy, thanks for your post.

To check if a bar is green would be if(Close[0] > Open[0]). When that condition occurs, save CurrentBar to a variable. Then you can reference that variable when Position.MarketPosition == MarketPosition.Long.

To check if you have a green bar and the position is long if would be written:

if(Position.MarketPosition == MarketPosition.Long)
{
if(Close[0] > Open[0])
{

}
}

Best regards,

-ChrisL

Right, that would be to check if the current bar is green. But, I want to be able to find the LAST green bar, whether that is the current bar or not. i.e. say there is a green bar and then five red bars, I want to be able to the ohlc of the green bar five bars ago. is this possible with the strategy builder?

[lunardiplomacy]

Hi, lunardiplomacy, thanks for your post.

To check if a bar is green would be if(Close[0] > Open[0]). When that condition occurs, save CurrentBar to a variable. Then you can reference that variable when Position.MarketPosition == MarketPosition.Long.

To check if you have a green bar and the position is long if would be written:

if(Position.MarketPosition == MarketPosition.Long)
{
if(Close[0] > Open[0])
{

}
}

Best regards,

-ChrisL

Do you see what I am saying? I understand how to create a green bar in a long trade as a variable, but then how would I reference the ohlc of said bar as an action, i.e. a stop loss.

[NinjaTrader_ChrisL]

Hi lunardiplomacy, thanks for your reply.
To check for a green bar 1 bar ago it would be written Close[1] > Open[1]. We have this documentation page on accessing bars:

https://ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt8/?referencing_the_correct_bar.htm

[lunardiplomacy]

Hi lunardiplomacy, thanks for your reply.
To check for a green bar 1 bar ago it would be written Close[1] > Open[1]. We have this documentation page on accessing bars:

https://ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt8/?referencing_the_correct_bar.htm

Thank you for putting up with my persistence, Chris, and for being patient with me. So, if I am understanding correctly, I should check for a green bar x bars back by checking that the previous bar is green repeatedly until the conditions for a green bar are met? Coding this 10 times over perhaps, assuming the last green bar would almost always fall within that range? I figured I could do that initially, it just seemed rather lacking in elegance, so I was wondering if there was a more efficient way to do it.

Also, one last question and then I'll stop bothering you. I know you can reference a previous bar by including its index number in brackets, as in Close[10] which would yield the bar that occurred 10 bars ago, but is it possible to do something like this -- Close[0:10], in order to process some condition between the current bar and the bar 10 bars ago? For example if I wanted to find the low of the last 10 bars I could do Low[0:10] -- I know this doesn't actually work, but if you could teach me how something like this translates to C# it would be much appreciated, it's not necessarily related to the initial question.

Thanks, Chris

[NinjaTrader_PaulH]

Hello lunardiplomacy,

Thanks for your reply.

Regarding, "So, if I am understanding correctly, I should check for a green bar x bars back by checking that the previous bar is green repeatedly until the conditions for a green bar are met? Coding this 10 times over perhaps, assuming the last green bar would almost always fall within that range? I figured I could do that initially, it just seemed rather lacking in elegance, so I was wondering if there was a more efficient way to do it." As Chris previously advised, check to see that you are in a position and then check each new candle for Close[0] > open[0] as the latest green candle and when true, you can employ your actions.

Regarding, "...if I wanted to find the low of the last 10 bars I could do Low[0:10] -- I know this doesn't actually work, but if you could teach me how something like this translates to C# it would be much appreciated, it's not necessarily related to the initial question."
There are a couple of ways:

1) In C# you could use a for loop:

[I]double myLow = double.MaxValue; // set the variable myLow to the maximum possible double value.
myLow = int.ma
for (int i = 0; i <= 10; i++)
{
if (Low < myLow) // cycle through 0 to 10 bars ago to find the lowest
{
myLow = Low[0]
}
}

2) A better way would be to use the MIN() method: https://ninjatrader.com/support/help...inimum_min.htm

double myLow = MIN(Low, 10)[0]; // pull the current value of lowest value of the Low data series from the last 10 bars

[lunardiplomacy]

Hi again, Paul,

Thank you for pointing out the MIN() method, that is precisely what I was looking for. Also, thank you for your help with the simple horizontal lines indicator, it came out swimmingly.