Swing High/Low and Zig Zag Indicators

[whitmark]

There is an impressive set of indicators available in NinjaTrader but noticably absent are any price retracement type indicators such as:

Swing (Pivot) High/Low - based on X number higher(lower) bars on either side of a price high(low), with a lookback period of y bars.

Zig Zag - based on a fixed or percentage retracement amountrelative to a high (low) bar, with a lookback period of y bars.

I would add, that in the event that the high(low) values are made by multiple bars, that therebe an ability to identify the last high(low) bar and not just the first high(low) bar. As Dierk points out in another thread, using drawing objects to connect the dots is not very practical and it would be good to know if this is the reason these types of indicators have not surfaced yet.

Thanks for your consideration.

Regards,

Whitmark

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

We'll put them to our list. Do you have some reference links available on how they work?

Thanks for your suggestion.

[whitmark]

Here are some links to use as reference in the public domain:

Swing High/Low:

http://www.fxstreet.com/education/technical/advanced-indicator-manual/swing-indicator/

Sometimes swing high(lows)or pivot high(low) of "strength" 3 barsarealso referred to as a "three ring" pivot. It is also useful to be able to define the left and right "strength" as independant values. For example, it may be desireable to identify a swing high with a left strength of 10barsand a right strength of 3 bars, especially in identifying divergence patterns.

ZigZag:

http://www.traders.com/Documentation/FEEDbk_docs/Archive/112003/TradersTips/TradersTips.html

Its important to have both a fixed priceand % price retracement parameter option in the indicator. Some indicators I have used will have an up color, down color, and another color for the line that connects the current high(low) bar until it retraces the defined amount and locks in.

Typically, these indicators will also output the swing/zigzag high/low value as well as the number of bars ago the high/low value occured. Here again,where thereare multiple bars with the same high/low value, it would be nice to identify the last vs thefirst bar.


Regards,

Whitmark

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

Thanks for this info. We'll check it out.

[whitmark]

Any timeline yet as to when swing high/low or zig zag indicators might be developed as a standard NinjaTrader indicator?

Whitmark

[NinjaTrader_Ray]

Next release likely end of this coming week.

[zoltran]

Hi Dierk

These Indicators should accept other indicators as inputs as well as price.

For example, Swing Low/High on ADX

rgds

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

Thanks for your suggestion. We'll add it to the list.

[shawnj]

I hope you will create SwingHigh and SwingLow functions that are basically compatible with the Easylanguage versions. Basically they either return the swingHigh(low) price on the bar that a swingHigh(low) is identified on or a -1 if there is no swingHigh(low). And for completeness, though I dont use these much myself, Easylanguage also provides functions for SwingHighBar and SwingLowBar. These return the number of bars ago that the SwingHigh(low) occured.

Basically these functions use a while loop to interate across the bars defined by Strength looking for the max (high) or min (low) price. I was getting ready to break in my NinjaScript/C# coding chops on this but if you guys are about to release it - great.

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

Yes we do.

[shawnj]

Are you saying Ninjascript currently has SwingHigh and SwingLow functions? I cant fund them in the doco. Are are you saying a future(next) release will have them?

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

>> Are are you saying a future(next) release will have them?
Yes

[PrTester]

Do you have any news or ETA for the indicators?

Regards

[NinjaTrader_Ray]

Hopefully this coming week.

[richa61416]

Hopefully this coming week.


I am inquiring about the same Swing indicators. I have seen them on other packages, looks like they can be useful. If you are not releasing this week, can you email them so I can add them manually.

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

You may want to try latest custom build holding the swing indicator. Please:
- uninstall NT6 via control panel
- clear your browser cache
- install latest custom build from here: www.ninjatrader-support.com/ninjatrader/nt6.custom/NinjaTrader.Install.msi

[rtrader]

Many thanks for releasing the ZigZag. I can't seem to get it to pivot from the high of the bar on a swing high and the low of the bar on the swing low though - the options doesn't seem to support this. However, this is a small issue and I can fix it.

Great work!

[richa61416]

Thanks for the indicators.

[whitmark]

As the originator of the Zig Zag and Swing High/Low indicator request (not to assume it wasn't on your list in the first place :) ), I want to thank you for the quick turnaround to get these sophisticated indicators out the door.

In testing out the ZigZag, one significant issue I discovered was that the indicator was limited in its operation to single data series element (e.g., Close, High, Low, or Open) and not correctly alternating between bar Highs (zig) and bar Lows (zag) extremes.

Zig Zag - based on a fixed or percentage retracement amount relative to a high (low) bar, with a lookback period of y bars.

While the current single series implementation might be useful when applied to single series indicator, it is not a typical application as commonly applied to a OHLC price series. I might suggest the introduction of an override "UseHighLow" parameter that can be set to "true" to apply the traditional high/low ZigZag display and set to "false" to elect the current implementation.

I would also add, that unlike the Swing indicator, the ZigZag indicator does not yet supply a data series to determine the number of bars ago a ZigZag High or Low point occurred. These values are critical to any programmatic use of this indicator.

Thanks for your consideration of these enhancements. Keep up the great work!

Regards,

Whitmark

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

a) We'll add the High/Low issue to our list. Christian will come back to you in case.
b) We have the data series issue on our list already. Thanks

[NinjaTrader_Christian]

Hello Whitmark !



While the current single series implementation might be useful when applied to single series indicator, it is not a typical application as commonly applied to a OHLC price series. I might suggest the introduction of an override "UseHighLow" parameter that can be set to "true" to apply the traditional high/low ZigZag display and set to "false" to elect the current implementation.


Thank you for the suggestion for the UseHighLow property. Attached is the new implementation of the ZigZag indicator, including your suggestion. Can you please check if this implementation hits your needs ?

Thank you and kind regards,
Christian

[whitmark]

Hi Christian,

Thanks for your hard work on the ZigZag indicator. I suspect there will be many a happy camper when this get's tweaked out as the ZigZag indicator is a great tool for identifying market swings based on fixed retracements vs bar strength. I did install the indicator and noticed a few things outlined below:


As you can see in the attached exhibit, it doesn't look like the indicator is reaching the extreme highs/lows as I would have expected. I've also attached a zigzag from another non-TS platform I use that has a solid implementation of this indicator. You might also notice the use of different line colors for up, down, and "don't know yet" which is a very useful feature.
-

When I first load the indicator I see 4 parameters, and select "Use high and low = True" but after I apply it, the price type disappears (see attached). Is this intended?
-
I did not see any reference to the ZigZagHighBar or ZigZagLowBar dataseries on the indicator. Is this available yet?
-
For extra credit, I've also shared an exhibit of a "right shifted" zigzag that is very useful since most traders are interested knowing the bars ago of the last occurence of a pivot point and not the first occurence within the same zig or zag of prices (see attached.) Perhaps a "Shift Same Pivot" parameter can be considered.

Don't hesitate to contact me directly if you have any questions on this or could use additional feedback. Thanks.

Regards,

Whitmark

[NinjaTrader_Christian]

Hi Mark !

I send you an e-mail with answers and explanations.

Kind regards,
Christian

[whitmark]

Hey Christian,

Got it and have replied in kind. Thanks for spearheading this development effort.

Regards,

Whitmark

[zoltran]

Christian
Would it be possible to share your comments to whitmark so others following this thread can be brought up to date?

[NinjaTrader_Christian]

Hi,

1) As far as we’ve seen in our tests, the ZigZag is implemented correctly. Nevertheless there are different definitions and implementations for the ZigZag indicator available.
2) This is intended. When use high/low is true, the selection of the price type is not necessary (because it is always high and low selected). For that we made it not visible.
3) It is not available yet, but will be implemented in the next major overhaul.
4) We've put this feature on our list for future development.

Kind regards,
Christian

[whitmark]

Thanks Christian,

Since an indicator's beauty (er functionality) is in the eye of the beholder (er developer), I was motivated to roll my own version of the ZigZag indicator using an approach I was already familiar with . . pls see attached. This version incorporates:


points or percent retracement option.
separate draw colors for up/down swings (e.g., blue & red).
third draw color for incomplete swing (e.g., orange).
"right shift" pivot for high/lows of same value.
interim high/low values for each ZigZag swing (e.g., lightgreen & pink) that alternate when a swing locks.
additional zzPivotValue, zzBarsAgo, zzDirection values available when indicator used as part of a strategy or for pattern recognition purposes.
drawn or plotted values can be suppressed.

Thought it might be inspiration for those who might endeavor to spice up a standard indicator although, I am not sure how much effort it would take to get the standard ZigZag to this point since I did not start with it.

Regards,

Whitmark

[NinjaTrader_Ray]

Looks good Whitmark!

[PrTester]

Whitmark

Your indicator is for business purposes? or you think you can share with the less skilled people.

Regards,

good work

[whitmark]

Thanks . . . I appreciate the kudos and PMs. Frankly, there is too much going on in this indicator to distribute it as freeware not to mention my limited bandwidth to address likely follow-up questions. I haven't decided whether I will distribute it at all but I know Ray and Christian welcome feedback on how to improve their indicator offerings, as this thread will attest.

Also, please use a private message for inquiries of this nature or my contact info that can be found on my website that is linked to the NinjaScript Consultants (http://www.ninjatrader.com/webnew/partners_onlinetrading_NinjaScript.htm) page.

Regards,

Whitmark

[grd974]

Hi,
I downloaded ZigZag.cs but I did not want to replace the original ZigZag indicator so I copied ZigZag.cs as ZigZag2.cs into NinjaTrader 6\bin\Custom\Ìndicator subdirectory.
Next day I tried to compile a custom indicator and got an error message warning that there are 2 ZigZag indicators.
I edited ZigZag2.cs and replaced each occurence of ZigZag with ZigZag2 but got sort of this warning "Change will not work because a system indicator cannot be saved".
What is to be done when downloading a Ninja script from the support forum ?

Gérard

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

Unfortunately your installation now is screwed up. Please:
- uninstall NT6 via control panel
- manually remove files <my documents>/NinjaTrader6/bin/Custom/Indicator/@ZipZag.cs and @ZipZag2.cs
- reinstall NT6

Should be working again.

[grd974]

Fortunately, I had not to re-install NT6 and everything is working as before after I had done some manual cleaning. Thanks.

[ZMaxx]

Hi all,

I like the ZigZagUTC indicator, but I would like to ask if anyone can modify this indicator. What I want need is, if it is possible to automaticly draw line by this way how it is ilustrated on attached picture.

thank you very much.
ZMaxx

[trader1512]

can anyone tell me where to find the zigzag indicator or is it the standard one from ninja.

has the zigzagswing indicator every been made available.

[NinjaTrader_Kyle]

Hi Trader1512,

Thank you for your post.

You can download the ZigZag indicator at the following link: http://www.ninjatrader-support2.com/vb/local_links_search.php?action=show&literal=1&search=zig&desc=1

After downloading, you will need to import the indicator using the steps listed at the following link: http://www.ninjatrader-support.com/HelpGuideV6/helpguide.html?Import1

[wbear009]

Thanks . . . I appreciate the kudos and PMs. Frankly, there is too much going on in this indicator to distribute it as freeware not to mention my limited bandwidth to address likely follow-up questions. I haven't decided whether I will distribute it at all but I know Ray and Christian welcome feedback on how to improve their indicator offerings, as this thread will attest.

Also, please use a private message for inquiries of this nature or my contact info that can be found on my website that is linked to the NinjaScript Consultants (http://www.ninjatrader.com/webnew/partners_onlinetrading_NinjaScript.htm) page.

Regards,

Whitmark

Hi folks,

Sorry for digging up a 3-yr-old thread; but does anyone know of an "open source" implementation of the Whitmark zigzag indy. The Whitmark implementation seems to be the best I've seen. I'm in need of the source so I can tweak it for automating a number of strats that I'm currently trading manually. I went to the Whitmark site, but can't seem to find any info on it.

Many thanks in advance!

-wb

[whitmark]

The Whitmark implementation seems to be the best I've seen.

Thanks for the compliment. I am afraid there is only one guy on the planet who has this open source. Send me an email with your intentions for usage.

Whitmark

[wbear009]

Whitmark,

I sent you an email to the portal at whitmarkdevelopment.com (info@whitmarkdevelopment.com). Thank you kindly for your consideration.

-wb:)

[wbear009]

Hi Whitmark,

On 12/04/2010, I sent you an email as per your suggestion, but have not heard from you for a while. Would you be so kind to let me know the status of our conversation (via wbear009 at yahoo-dot-com). I truly think your implementation of the Zigzag indicator can put to good use for automation.

Thanks so much.
-wb