MAX Function

[snaphook]

I have gone over the help section and for the life of me, I don't understand how to use MAX and MIN. Please help.

Here is the data:
Bar# Open High Low Close
0 447.6 448.9 447.4 448.9
1 449.0 449.3 447.8 447.8
2 447.7 448.2 446.7 446.7

j=CurrentBar-0;//0 is simply the first bar in the above data
sw = File.AppendText(@FilePath);
if(dExp.WCCIDirection[j] == 1)//1 = Long and -1 = Short
sw.Write(","+Close[0]+","+MAX(High,j-1)+",,");//LONG
else
sw.Write(","+Close[0]+","+MIN(Low,j-1)+",,");//SHORT
sw.Flush();
sw.Close();

The trade is Long and this triggers @ 447.4 in the middle of bar #2 having made its high for the bar, so j==2 and I would expect to get:

,447.4,449.3,, emphasis added, High of bars 1 and 2 (j-1 bars back)

what I get is:

,447.4,MAX(High,1),, what happened to my double?


If I substitute MAX(High,j-1)[0] I get:

,447.4,448.2,, Just I would expect (high of current bar)

If I substitute MAX(High,j-1)[1] I get:

,447.4,449.3,, Just what I would expect (high of previous bar)

and [2] returns 448.9, what I would expect.

Please help.

Snap

[NinjaTrader_Bertrand]

Hi Snap, not sure I follow - so it seems to work as expected when you access the method with an index value like MAX(High,j-1)[0]? This is important to return a double value from it.

[snaphook]

Exactly. When used with an index value it returns the lowest Low or the highest High of that Bar. I'm not sure how valuable that is because High[1] also returns the highest High of that bar, but that is another matter.

If I simply use MAX(High,j-1) I expect to get the highest High of the past j-1 bars, however, it actually prints the MAX(High,1) characters, the 1 being the value of j-1.

The example shows that using a [0] index I should get the highest High from the 0th bar (current bar) to the j-1 bar back (1 back), but I can't seem to get that. It returns the value of the current bar.

[snaphook]

I think I figured out I am doing wrong. For others that may be as dense as I am,

MAX(High,2)[0] considers the current bar [0] to be the 1st bar back and the [1th] bar to be the 2nd bar back. So the above will retrieve the highest High for the current and previous bar, not 2 bars back from the current bar.

[NinjaTrader_Bertrand]

Great you got it figured out, this will also depend on your CalculateOnBarClose setting - http://www.ninjatrader-support.com/H...BarClose1.html