what controls the start of the initial bar in a range bar chart

[tulanch]

I understand what range bars are. For example if I am drawing a 8 tick range bar on the ES, a single bar in my chart would be represent 2 points movement (1 point = 4 ticks)

My question is, given this 8 tick range bar chart of the ES, what criteria controls when the accumulation of the ticks in the range bar begins?

Does it by default simply start with the 1st tick of the data as defined in the date range of a chart? Say for example I have 15 days of historical data displayed on the chart based on my settings, does the chart range bar accumulation of ticks simply start with the 1st tick, 15 days ago?

Here more insight into why I am so interested in this...

Say I am interested in a specific price extreme, for example say yesterdays close...( or just pick your favorite extreme point/price of interest perhaps an intraday swing point). Is there a way to cause a range bar chart to start its accumulation of ticks at a specificed price or tick?

[NinjaTrader_Chip]

Hello tulanch,

Thank you for your post.

If I understand your question, if you wanted to have that level of control over the starting tick you would most likely need to import the tick data. Otherwise the 1st tick would be dictated by the data vendor that you’re connected to. Importing your own tick data would give you an opportunity to control the beginning/starting price.
You can check out the following for proper format & instruction on data import:

http://www.ninjatrader-support.com/HelpGuideV6/helpguide.html?Import

It is important to also understand how NinjaTrader builds charts. This link provides a comprehensive discuss on the topic:

http://www.ninjatrader-support.com/HelpGuideV6/helpguide.html?HowDoesNinjaTraderBuildChartBars

Please let me know if you have any additional questions.