Time of duration of Renko bars

[arbuthnot]

Hi everyone

Renko bars are a great tool. They are necessarily time-independent.

It is all too easy when judging a strategy on a Renko chart (or Range chart for that matter) not to take into account the fact that some of the trades indicated would never, in practice, get a good fill because the market is moving too fast.

What I'm aiming for is to get my automated Renko-based strategies to reject a trade if the bar in question has formed too rapidly, or to have this information easily visible when trading on a discretionary basis. Trouble is, I don't know how to code this and I'm asking for some help with this.

I'd therefore greatly appreciate some assistance with:

a) how to code for the time that elapses from Close[1] to Close[0].

b) ideally, I would like this figure (being the elapsed number of minutes and seconds) to appear in a box at the top right of the chart. Is this possible and if so, how would I code it?

Many thanks in advance.

[NinjaTrader_ChelseaB]

Hi arbuthnot,

Thanks for your note.

To find the time between two bars.

Time[0].Subtract(Time[1]).TotalSeconds.ToString();


Would you only want the time of the last completed bar in this textbox?

If so:

DrawTextFixed("bartime", Time[0].Subtract(Time[1]).TotalSeconds.ToString(), TextPosition.TopRight);

[arbuthnot]

Thanks, Chelsea, that's exactly what I was looking for!

Previously, I'd looked in Help, in the Forum and googled and there's no way I would have found these solutions - that work great - in a finite amount of time! (Given time is what this thread is about...)

I've looked up DrawTextFixed in Help and there are various ways you can adjust the parameters.

I now see that the problem with putting the text in the Top Right is that the Chart Trader symbol can get in the way so Bottom Right could be a better idea.

I may want to use or display information about other bars than the last completed bar but I'll play around with this and see what I can produce and post again if I get stuck.

Much obliged, Chelsea.

[arbuthnot]

Hi again

I'm returning to this thread as I'm having a problem with coding the requirement that if the time between Close[0] and Close[1] for the current Renko bar is less than k number of seconds, then no trade is to be entered.

This is how my code looks at the moment:

if(

[I]...conditions...[/I]

[B]&& Time[0].Subtract(Time[1]).TotalSeconds <=30[/B]

)

I want there to be no trade if the Renko bar is not longer than 30 seconds. When I use the code here, it compiles OK but weird things happen to the chart which aren't what I'm hoping for!

Thanks in advance for any advice about this.

[NinjaTrader_ChelseaB]

Hi arbuthnot,

The code seems right. If you print the value before the condition is the total seconds showing correctly from the print?

For example:
Print(Time[0].Subtract(Time[1]).TotalSeconds);

[arbuthnot]

Thanks very much, Chelsea. You said it should work - and it does!

For anyone new to the Forum and NT, a good way to sort out a coding problem is to test it in the simplest possible manner.

So I coded up a 'toy' indicator as follows:

if(     
                Close[0] > Open[0]
                && Time[0].Subtract(Time[1]).TotalSeconds >= 30
                )
            
            {BarColor = Color.Blue;}
            
            if(     
                Close[0] < Open[0]
                && Time[0].Subtract(Time[1]).TotalSeconds >= 30
                )
            
            {BarColor = Color.Red;}

Loading this on a Renko chart, those bars lasting less than 30 seconds had unchanged Bar Color.

I now know the problem lies with some lines of code other than

Time[0].Subtract(Time[1]).TotalSeconds

Much obliged for your help.