BTW for itme #2 above I used

IF currentTime => 093000 THEN

to get it to try again after 9:30 but I do want to limit the amount of time it sells/buys

to be more exact, how do I get MyBuyPrice in the example below

MyBuyprice = high[40]

to occur only once a day at the open of the market and then be triggered only a set X amount of times during that day

Thanks, that was very informative

I always prefer not to invent the wheel if possible

based on the code you sent me I run a quick test and it seems it still doesn’t fully do what I expect it to do.

I wrote the simplest possible program to just get the last high from the bar before now and buy when the market is above that highest buy.

I run it for IBM 15 min bars on March 28 at 14:30

the highest of that 14:15 bar was 15274.5

but the buy order was triggered at 14:30 at 15265.5

it seems like it is ignoring the high[1] and just buying the open of the current bar

what am i missing here?

DEFPARAM CumulateOrders = false
DEFPARAM FLATBefore     = 090000                         
DEFPARAM FLATAfter      = 230000                         
DEFPARAM PreLoadBars    = 10000

ONCE FirstHour          = 143000

IF time = FirstHour THEN
  MyBuyprice = high[1]
END IF
IF NOT ONMARKET AND close>MyBuyprice THEN
 BUY 1 CONTRACTS AT MARKET
 MyBuyprice=999999
ENDIF

Thanks, Can you elaborate?

I can’t see how my condition could have been met if close>MyBuyprice was not reached yet at market open.

I reread the documentation about limit and tried changing the code to “BUY 1 CONTRACTS AT MyBuyprice  limit” but that didn’t work  (tried “close-10 limit” and other options too)

So I guess I don”t know how to use limit in this sense here.

my understanding of limit is the amount or points I want to profit where as stoploss are the amount/points I am willing to lose

also, from reading the docs I see that the LIMIT order should be below the close price which is not what I need

It seems no matter what I do the MyBuyprice  is set to a number that is different then the high[1]

First off I’d like to thank all of you for taking the time to reply to my questions. I really appreciate it!

Thanks roberto, I tried the code you suggested as follows

DEFPARAM CumulateOrders = false
DEFPARAM FLATBefore     = 090000
DEFPARAM FLATAfter      = 230000
DEFPARAM PreLoadBars    = 10000
MyBuyprice=999999
ONCE FirstHour          = 143000

IF time = FirstHour THEN
MyBuyprice = high[1]
ENDIF
IF NOT ONMARKET THEN
BUY 1 CONTRACTS AT MyBuyprice STOP
MyBuyprice=999999
ENDIF

but it just gets into the market at 14:30 with the open of that bar (not the amount in MyBuyPrice/high[1]) no matter what I do

here is what I need for this simple example to work:

1. get the high of the previous bar when the market opens
2. get into the market with a buy order if the market reached that high

Thanks again

Alan

Yes “GRAPH” is exactly the debugging tool I was looking for. Thanks!

Now I see the problem (at 14:30 high[1] is actually giving me the value from 14:00 not 14:15 – not sure why…)

So now to finish my example I have another question:

How can I tell if a position made profit or loss. I want the code to do the following:

WHEN out of the market/position

IF CONDITION <“made profit today”> THEN quit for the day

ELSE attempt another trade

any thoughts?

Thanks

Alan

Thanks again Roberto and all

For the last few days I wrote the basic test code but it is still not finished.

1. I am still not sure how to cancel all positions and orders – is there a command (like QUIT but only for a single day) or do I need to manually SELL AT MARKET even when I didn’t buy yet
2. I am also not sure if all the code is run for each bar again and again (I am guessing the answer is yes)
3. if the bar is a 3 minute bar does it wait till close to run the code is it not in “real time” tick for tick
4. if I want to look back and backtest the data from the last 12 month can I do it on a 3 min bar? it seems I have very limited access to the data on a 3 min bar

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

Alan