Charlton

Multiply it by 10000 first and then apply numtostr and choose 0 decimal places Charlton

Chris The format of this function is shown below Value1 = Text_New(BarDate, BarTime, Price, "MyText") Price is a numeric expression representing the price value at which to anchor the text object In my particular example using $INDU I am placing the text at $3 below the low of the bar. Remember this is just an example to illustrate how to put a numeric value into the bar text. I would imagine in your case that using -3 has placed the text so far down the chart that it doesn't show up. If you want to place the text at a fixed point below the low of the bars then you have to adjust the -3 to be a value that is appropriate to the prices shown on the bars. So for example if you changed it to -0.3 it would bring the text closer to the bar. You just need to look at your chart and decide on an appropriate figure. That is why your original code used "range", because it looks at the high - close of the bar and sets the distance based upon that. This means that as you move through the chart in time the distance of the text from the bar should adjust to reflect the scaling used by TS on the price axis. If however the scaling is fairly constant during the timeperiod you are looking at then you can use an appropriate fixed space. Charlton

Chris You had a post about how to label a bar with the ATR of that bar on the chart, but it seems to have disappeared during the time I was setting up a reply to you. Anyway for what it's worth I have coded up a really simple example based upon the couple of lines of code you had in that message vars: id(0); ID = Text_New(D,T,L-3, "test: " + numtostr(H,3) ); Value2 = Text_SetColor(ID ,yellow); Value3 = Text_SetStyle(ID,1,2); In this case I am simply adding the high of the bar after the word test using the numtostr function. In your case you would place the variable containing the ATR value in the brackets. The 3 refers to the number of decimal places you want to display. The result is shown in the picture Charlton

It's very easy to get a feel for the Amibroker offering from their site. Look at the AFL library AFL Reference links on the main web-page - they show the code used. Also there is a link to their Yahoo User Group. In addition you can download it for a free trial (1 month I believe). You could probably test out your NinjaTrader exports in that time. Also worth looking at is the Knowledge Base with complete code examples. I still have it but don't use it, because I use Tradestation now. Like Kiwi I do multi-timeframe analysis. AB does appear to handle multiple timeframe analysis e.g. Multiple Time Frame support, however it depends upon what precisely you are trying to achieve and clearly it did not satisfy Kiwi's particular requirements at the time. There are certain issues in TS relating to multiple TFs, which may require the use of globalvariables or even external functions. Some users will hit these issues because of the particular needs of their strategies, whereas others will happily use a particular platform/proprietary language blissfully unaware of/not effected by them. In truth this is difficult to predict until you start using the software in earnest. Charlton

Keep your mind open, don't jump into parting with your money too easily no matter how attractive the strategy/training course/indicator appears to be. Be prepared to do a ton of work understanding the markets - the "Holy Grail" is within you not outside you - there is no magic indicator. Protect your positions at all cost using sound money management techniques. This is a good site for learning trading, relatively free from scammers, so good trading (notice I don't say luck) Charlton

Brilliant - you saved me a bit of coding, because I was going to do pretty much the same thing tomorrow. I was looking at breaking it down to a lower level e.g. 15 mins and look for stats on patterns of price action throughout the session but analysed by 15 min sections. I will be following closely what you are doing and hope to add some of my own analysis, but not tonight on account of too much medoc !!! Charlton

Here's an indicator plot that shows profit for the day based on close of previous session and current bar close, ignoring any transaction costs. plot1(Close*getpositionquantity(GetSymbolName, GetAccountID) - prevclose*getpositionquantity(GetSymbolName, GetAccountID), "Days profit"); This is based on TS8.6 (build 2612). Charlton

I think this is exactly right. The development of a mechanical trading system is an iterative process that involves both discretionary and mechanical elements. You start with a concept or strategy that you have traded in pratice. In order to mechanise it there is a need to identify a set of rules/logic that can be converted into a programmeable language. This process will also help clarify the manual system (the starting point) thereby helping it to become more successful as a by-product of the exercise. Equally it will identify aspects of the manual system that are currently discretionary. Taking a simple example, you might have a trend following mechanical system that is fully mechanised. However it might only work in a trending market, therefore there is a discretionary element that needs to "switch" it on and off depending upon market conditions. In time, using for example different indicators, you might be able to identify in a mechanical way whether the market is trending or consolidating, in which case you have created a mechanical switch that can sit on top of the trending system. The mechanical system can then be further developed to include components for placing trades during consolidation periods. Theoretically I see no reason why a mechanical system cannot be left on 24 hours and maintain profitability, but this is subject to the switching concept I mentioned earlier and the development of trading components that handle each market characteristic. This would not be easy in practice, but it is entirely logical. However in practice, given the limitations that retail traders face, we probably have to settle with a mix of discretionary and mechanical trading coupled with a constant feedback between the two, such that both types of system improve over time. Charlton

To achieve the type of report you require would need a system that had a programming language. Certainly TS could do that. Amibroker could as well. The most important thing with any kind of report/strategy like this is to "convert" your ideas into a series of well-defined steps, which can be easily converted into program logic. So in the example you gave you would need to specify how to calculate "average return after the bounce" precisely. For example the average return would be over what period. I assume that you mean 2 days because you mention later that you want to compare it to S&P over 2 days. One way to get into this mindset would be to download prices into, for example, excel and then attempt to create some calculation cells that illustrate how you would go about this. Once it is done manually/semi-manually in excel you have a good example that could be coded up via Tradestation Easylanguage for example. Charlton

Since the subject of market and limit orders was mentioned in the thread, readers might like to know the options available in addition to manually entering a limit price. There are auto features as well and I have pasted the sections from the help text The Auto Price feature allows you to quickly place a limit and/or stop order that joins, improves, splits, shaves or hits/takes the inside market without having to calculate a price. You can set the price increments that are available when you use this feature. Hit/Take automatically specifies a Limit Price equal to the best Ask price for a Buy order and the best Bid price for a Sell order. Hit/Take+ automatically calculates a Limit Price that is one Change Increment larger than the best Ask price for a Buy order and one Change Increment less than the best Bid price for a Sell order. Improve automatically calculates a Limit Price that is one Change Increment larger than the best Bid price for a Buy order and one Change Increment less than the best Ask price for a Sell order. Also, to protect you from crossing the market, the Improve price will not be greater than the Ask price for Buy orders or less than the Bid price for Sell orders. Join automatically specifies a Limit Price equal to the best Bid price for a Buy order and the best Ask price for a Sell order. Split automatically calculates a Limit Price that is halfway between the best Bid price and the best Ask price. Charlton

I thought you might ask that - it is the interval that I happen to have on that radar screen at present. This can run from tick, through minutes, hours etc. It happens to be a column I have on there between the symbol and the Bid - Ask columns. You can have an columns you like on a radar screen including indicators. The radar screen is like an excel spreadsheet showing values at the current time, whereas the chart shows values over a time axis. Charlton

AAPL 10 Min 0.03 AMZN 10 Min 0.01 APOL 10 Min 0.02 BA 10 Min 0.01 BBBY 10 Min 0.01 BIG 10 Min 0.02 BBY 10 Min 0.01 BIIB 10 Min 0.01 BNI 10 Min 0.03 CAT 10 Min 0.01 CELG 10 Min 0.02 CNX 10 Min 0.02 COF 10 Min 0.01 COH 10 Min 0.01 COST 10 Min 0.01 CSCO 10 Min 0.01 DD 10 Min 0.01 EOG 10 Min 0.02 ESI 10 Min 0.04 EXM 10 Min 0.01 FDX 10 Min 0.02 GD 10 Min 0.02 GILD 10 Min 0.01 HIG 10 Min 0.01 HPQ 10 Min 0.01 IBM 10 Min 0.03 JNJ 10 Min 0.01 JOYG 10 Min 0.02 LVS 10 Min 0.01 NSC 10 Min 0.03 NYX 10 Min 0.01 RIG 10 Min 0.02 RIMM 10 Min 0.02 RRC 10 Min 0.01 TGT 10 Min 0.01 UTX 10 Min 0.01 WFR 10 Min 0.01 WHR 10 Min 0.01 WLP 10 Min 0.01 WMT 10 Min 0.01 YHOO 10 Min 0.01 RIG 10 Min 0.02 Here's a list taken straight off my screen showing the spread. If you want to know what it is for certain stocks then let me have the symbols Charlton

I have accounts with both IB and TS. I trade US stocks and have had no real issues with slippage, spread or data. Spread on US stocks is generally 0.01. Sometimes there are data disconnections, but these seem to be related to how long the pc is left idle and as soon as it is no longer idle the automatic reconnection kicks in. I have only used customer service once I think to ask a question, so in my experience it has never been needed. The simulator runs real-time data and simulates the live account exactly, although you can adjust the account size. All of the strategies, windows setup etc are duplicated in the simulator, so I would say it is very realistic. It can be used to back-test strategies and to produce performance reports on that basis. There are certain advanced things where it acts slightly differently, where you are using advanced programming functions, but for most people it mimics the real world in all its functionality, data and the way trades would be treated. You are correct that you cannot trade directly with the IB broker but through an API. In fact if you did this you would need to pay the monthly platform cost of around $90, which is only free if you do a certain number of trades via the TS broker. If you wanted to stick with IB I would recommend that you look at Amibroker. This is quite a cheap one-off price of around $200 and has a fairly strong programming language similar in grammar to TS. You can download their manuals and programming guide directly from their site to see. They also have an API already set up for IB. As for the TS forum it is indeed very good and there is a thriving and active user base that share code on the forum and elsewhere in other sites Charlton

I use global variables e.g. GVSETNAMEDINT and GVGETNamedint. There is a whole (excuse the pun) array of them that prove extremely useful for passing and storing values within and between windows Charlton

Last is the last traded price of the day. If you plot last on your chart then you will get a horizontal line at that price. Close is the closing price of the bar. If you plot this you will get a line that goes up and down with each bar assuming the closing prices on bars are different as they normally are. Charlton

Try this one http://www.acrovista.com/alarmwiz/tip1-n.html Charlton

You can download an ebook from the Tradestation site giving you all the reserved words and functions https://www.tradestation.com/support/books/default.aspx#easylanguage On the same page you can also download for free an ebook on easylanguage essentials. The other materials and hard copies need to be ordered Charlton

Hi Charlton has landed and bring you some news perhaps http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24681311/ Charlton