Does Strategy OnBarUpdate Run Before Indicator on Same Chart

[cutzpr]

I’d like to clarify the execution order of OnBarUpdate when both a strategy and an indicator are loaded on the same chart in NinjaTrader 8.

If I have both a strategy and a custom indicator applied to the same chart (regardless of which one I add first), will the chart always execute the strategy’s OnBarUpdate before the indicator’s OnBarUpdate on each new tick or bar? From my testing, this is what I am seeing.

Here’s the context:

I’m using a custom indicator to process signals and store them into a shared ConcurrentDictionary (think of it like a signal hub). My strategy then reads from this dictionary to generate entries. I want to test multiple strategy variations at the same time without duplicating the indicator logic inside each strategy, to keep things CPU-efficient.

The concern is timing — I need to ensure that the indicator has populated the dictionary before the strategy reads from it on the same bar.

Can anyone confirm the execution order, or suggest a reliable way to ensure this timing relationship?

Thanks!

[NinjaTrader_Jesse]

Hello cutzpr,

A strategy has no relation to the indicator on the chart, they are not in sync. Only if you used AddChartIndicator in the strategies code will that be relevant. If you use AddChartIndicator then the instance being used should process before the strategy so the strategy can get a value.

I would suggest using a more simple test script to make an indicator that reports 1 or 0 if a condition is true and then read that series<int> or plot from the strategy. That should result in the strategy getting the indicators most recent closed bar value if you used 0 bars ago.