Detect when New Swing Occur with Swing Indicator

[thaison316]

Hi, I'm using the Swing Indicator for my strategy, is there a way to detect when a new swing just formed which represents the line drawing. Did not get the line until the 5th bar here. My question is, how do I detect that the line just got drawn?

[NinjaTrader_Jesse]

Hello thaison316,

Thanks for the post.

The swing indicator is not set up to be used as a signal directly. This is due to how the logic works to re-write the plot value as new swings are located.

For this to be used as a signal would require that you implement the existing swing logic in your strategy, based on how that works it could submit orders when a new swing is calculated instead of rewriting the plot data. From the strategy calling an indicator standpoint the re-written plot data would not be helpful at being a signal because the strategy wont see the current value being a swing at the time OnBarUpdate is called.

I look forward to being of further assistance.

[bltdavid]

The problem is the Swing indicator only documents confirmed swings.

With Strength=5 that means we need 5 bars on both sides of a swing high
to have lower highs -- well, rats ...

... that means we need 5 bars to actually close after the swing high in order
to confirm the swing high candidate, was, in fact, a swing high.

Ah, you want to know about swing candidates?

That's what I call potential swing highs where the left half has been
confirmed (left 5 bars have lower highs) and now we're waiting for 5
more bars to close -- well, rats ...

We don't know how the next 5 bars will close. Any one of them could
close higher and invalidate the swing candidate we thought we found.

So, you could certainly code a function to find half a swing (by looking
at 'x' bars to the left) because the left side is easy to confirm, but in
order to act on the candidate swing high before 5 next bars on the
right have closed, you need a completely new algorithm, which
require you to think in terms of the "left side strength" vs "right side
strength".

The "left strength" is simply the same Strength as you supply to the
Swing indicator. This is the number of bars that must all have lower
Highs (for a swing high) or all higher Lows (for a swing low) on the
left side of our swing candidate.

The "right strength" is the special part -- this is the number of confirmation
bars that we require (minimum should be 1) that show us this candidate is
soon going to become a confirmed swing (we hope).

Think carefully -- RightStrength should always be < LeftStrength.

If RightStrength == LeftStrength, well, heck, that's just the Swing indicator
confirming 5 bars on left and 5 bars on right.

You want to know earlier than that. You want to know when 5 bars on left
but just 1 bar on right, or 2 bars on right, or 3 bars, etc -- so this partial
situation of an almost confirmed swing is why I say "swing candidate".

A function like,

private bool IsSwingHighCandidate(IDataSeries ds, int LeftStength, RightStrength)
{
....
}

which you call like,

if (IsSwingHighCandidate(High, 5, 1))
    Print("Found Swing(5) candidate for SwingHigh 1 bars ago");

if (IsSwingHighCandidate(High, 5, 2))
    Print("Found Swing(5) candidate for SwingHigh 2 bars ago");

Is this what you're after?

PS:
Good reading here.

[thaison316]

Thank you, not what I was looking for but reading your post made it clearer what I can and need to do.