Bools and strategy builder.

[sprks7979]

Hello All, hope your Sunday is going well.

I have a question on bools. I am using the strategy builder and trying to prevent multiple trades per direction.

Example. Say I have a simple Psar strategy that shoots a signal once the Psar plots the first dot either above or below. As it stands right now, if the signal is still valid after my initial TP or SL it takes another trade. I am wanting to stop this from happening. Only one trade per signal. Take the first buy, get the TP or SL and then wait until the next signal. First one is a buy, gets TP and doesn't fire again until there is a sell, and then repeats that process. I use the strategy builder right now and have had some suggestions of using bools but am unsure how to use this in the conditions and trigger's part. Any help or insight would be mucho appreciated.

Thanks

[markdshark]

Default properties screen there's an option on the second page to limit entries. See pic below. That will put this statement in your State.SetDefaults section:

EntriesPerDirection = 1;

Besides that, I put this in my code to take only 1 entry per bar:

Right at the top:

private bool thisBarLongTraded = false;
private bool thisBarShortTraded = false;

Then in onBarUpdate()

if (IsFirstTickOfBar)
{
thisBarLongTraded = false;
thisBarShortTraded = false;
}

And finally when taking the trade:

if (whatever signal)
{
EnterLong(Convert.ToInt32(DefaultQuantity), @"LE");
thisBarLongTraded = true;
}​

[sprks7979]

markdshark - Thanks for the reply, however I'm not sure that is what I am looking for. I have attached "hopefully" 2 screenshots showing my concern. The first shows the analyzer summary. The number of traded for one day is nauseous. 800+. The second shows the chart that has multiple entries per direction. I would like to try to limit one entry per "signal". I also have the #of entries per direction set to 1. Not sure where Im going wrong. I use the builder as I am not very well versed in C# so right now the editor doesnt make sense to me. Thanks

[markdshark]

Sorry.. read too quickly. One trade per direction, got it. If I understand correctly, then still easy just switch the code to this:

when taking the trade:

if (whatever signal && !long traded) { EnterLong(Convert.ToInt32(DefaultQuantity), @"LE"); LongTraded = true; ShortTraded = false;}​

then flip the boolean flags when you take a short trade. This way you'll never take 2 in the same direction.

Best

[sprks7979]

Thanks for the reply, it looks like the code should do what I want, however, not being a coder, when I try to add it to the unlocked code, I get errors like "the name "X" does not exist in current context. Im probably not declaring something. Is this possible to do in the builder. I tried to set some bools but don't think it's going right. Thanks for the help and sorry for my lack of knowledge. lol

[markdshark]

Sounds like you don't have the variables declared. You'd need to declare them up top kinda like this:

private bool thisBarLongTraded = false;
private bool thisBarShortTraded = false;​

Setting them to false will ensure your first trade gets executed whether long or short

[NinjaTrader_ChelseaB]

Hello sprks7979,

I've got an example using bools in the Strategy Builder you may find helpful.

https://ninjatrader.com/support/forum/forum/ninjatrader-8/strategy-development/1130921-entering-trade-when-conditions-don-t-happen-simultaneasly?p=1131172#post1131172

In the Strategy Builder, bools and other variables are declared on the Inputs and variables page.