Testing first tick of day bar

[sgordet]

To test for the value of the first tick of the day when charting 5 minute bars, I set COBC = false and use:
ToTime(Time[0]) == 93500 && FirstTickOfBar

What would I replace the ToTime(Time[0]) function with when using days bars as I don't think that I can use 161500 because the bars are marked with days instead of minutes. If it's some kind of date function that I need, I'd be appreciative if you could also give me the exact format that the date has to be in.

Thanks,
Stephen

[NinjaTrader_Dexter]

Hello Stephen,

Thank you for your post.

If you are working with daily bars, you only need to check FirstTickOfBar since there is only one daily bar in the session. No additional date checking should be needed.

Give this a try and let me know if I can assist with anything else.

[sgordet]

Thanks.
My strategy executes on day bars and depend on the opening price of the day (which you've shown me how to get). For backtesting, I'm going to need 1 minute bars (I don't have tick data going back far enough). I read the SampleIntrabarBacktest program. I realize that I have to execute buys and sells on the 1 minute bars, but do I have to explicitly reference the one minute bars when I need intraday data, e.g., for FirstTickOfBar when I'm doing my logical tests as they relate to day bars or will the backtesting program just have access to that 1 minute data and use it as appropriate. On the day bars, I just need to test the first tick of the day relative to the previous day's high and low and test prices during the day for their relationship to the previous day's high and low.

[NinjaTrader_Dexter]

Hello,

Thank you for your reply.

Yes, when you need to reference data from the one minute bars, you need to specify such. This can be done in an if(BarsInProgress == 1) section. You could also use BarsArray[1], this is assuming your 1 minute series is the first additional timeframe added. OnBarUpdate is called for each timeframe added, with the primary being index 0.

Since you are working with current day open high & low and previous day's high and low these two indicators may be of help:

CurrentdayOHL - http://www.ninjatrader.com/support/h...nt_day_ohl.htm
PriorDayOHLC - http://www.ninjatrader.com/support/h...r_day_ohlc.htm

You can access their calculated values so this may save you some effort. You may be able to just use a single timeframe in your code, and use these indicators for the day data.

Just let me know if I can assist with anything else

[sgordet]

Just to check that I understand this. Are these equivalent:

EnterLong(1, 1, "Long: 1min");

if (BarsInProgress == 1)
EnterLong(1,"Long: 1min");

[NinjaTrader_Dexter]

Hi Stephen,

They are different, the first one would run on both timeframes added. For example, if you are running on a 5 minute chart, and have added a 1 minute period via Add(), OnBarUpdate will be called for each time frame, on each tick if COBC = false. Checking BarsInProgress will make the logic only apply to a certain timeframe.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.