code for managing in-trade signals

[riskaverse305]

hi all,

i'm new to using efs so bear with me on this one...

i downloaded the into guide to developing efs stategies from this forum and it contained code on how to close out a current trade
when your signal fires again, but how do u tell the program to just chill and do nothing when you are in a trade and your trigger fires again?

my program just keeps buying and buying if the signal is on...

thanks for any help

[ACM]

riskaverse305
You enclose the section that triggers buys/sells in a condition that either checks that you are not already in a trade ie if(!Strategy.isInTrade()) or more specifically that you are not already long ie if)!Strategy.isLong()) or short ie if(!Strategy.isShort()) The exclamation mark that precedes the condition negates it. If you prefer you can also write it as if(Strategy.isLong()==false)
Hope this helps
Alex

[riskaverse305]

thnx, i was just confused because i was typing in strategy.islong
instead of Strategy.isLong... didn't realize everything was case sensitive

now another question: how do u specify the dates u want back-tested? i'm using 5 minute data and its only back-testing 3 days.

thanks again

[ACM]

riskaverse305
You define how many days you want to back test through the Time Template. However in the Back Tester you cannot define a start/end period during which you want the test to run. You need to do that in the efs itself. You can find an example of how to do this in this post.
Alex

[riskaverse305]

awesome, thanks for the quick response

[ACM]

riskaverse305
You are most welcome
Alex

[riskaverse305]

alright, sorry guys, one more question:

what code would u use to say, enter a trade after the signal is generated for a certain amount of time? say you only buy after the MACD goes positive for more than 5 minutes on a 1 minute interval.

thanks again

[ACM]

riskaverse305
Enclosed below is a sample of a strategy that will go Long at the close of the 5th bar after a buy signal was triggered. Comments are in the script. Insert it into a plain efs and add the following two global variables
var myBuyTrigger = false;
var vCounter = 0;
If you also want to see the average plotted add setPriceStudy(true) in preMain and for the return use sma(10,0)
Alex

var myLongCondition = close(0)>sma(10,0);//condition for Long

    if(!Strategy.isLong()){//if Strategy is NOT long
        if(!myLongCondition){//il condition for Buy is NOT true
            myBuyTrigger=false;//set the Buy Trigger to false
        }
        if(myLongCondition && !myBuyTrigger){//if Long condition is true AND Buy Trigger is false
            vCounter = getCurrentBarCount();//assign the current bar count to the variable vCounter
            setBarBgColor(Color.yellow);//color the background in yellow
            myBuyTrigger=true;//set the Buy Trigger to true
        }
        if(myBuyTrigger && (vCounter+4)==getCurrentBarCount()){//if Buy Trigger is true AND 5 bars have passed
            Strategy.doLong("Long",Strategy.CLOSE,Strategy.THISBAR);//go Long
            myBuyTrigger=false;//set the Buy Trigger to false
        }
    }
    if(Strategy.isLong()){//if Strategy is Long
        setBarBgColor(Color.lime);//color the background in lime
        if(!myLongCondition){//if Long condition is NOT true 
            Strategy.doSell("Sell",Strategy.CLOSE,Strategy.THISBAR);//close the trade
        }
    }