So this question has been racking my mind since I started coding in Easylanguage.

It clearly states here on Tradestation's "about reserved words page" that "Close" = "The last available price for the bar."

BUT

If you read further down just below the Price Data box it clearly states "For example, the reserved data word Close refers to the closing price of the bar currently being evaluated by the EasyLanguage procedure. " WHAT GIVES?

How I'm calculating my strategy greatly depends on the current price of the current bar, not the closing price. The closing prices gives me a lagged entrance / exit on my position.

I would love to hear some thoughts on this. Anything at all would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Brandon

djvie11 

So this question has been racking my mind since I started coding in Easylanguage. It clearly states here on Tradestation's "about reserved words page" that "Close" = "The last available price for the bar." BUT If you read further down just below the Price Data box it clearly states "For example, the reserved data word Close refers to the closing price of the bar currently being evaluated by the EasyLanguage procedure. " WHAT GIVES? How I'm calculating my strategy greatly depends on the current price of the current bar, not the closing price. The closing prices gives me a lagged entrance / exit on my position. I would love to hear some thoughts on this. Anything at all would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, Brandon

You probably want to look at Intrabar Order Generation, but just a warning: that is a tricky topic to get into (I never use it). It will also make accurate backtesting impossible.

You could possibly change your bar size, maybe that will solve your problem.

kevinkdog 

You probably want to look at Intrabar Order Generation, but just a warning: that is a tricky topic to get into (I never use it). It will also make accurate backtesting impossible. You could possibly change your bar size, maybe that will solve your problem.

Thanks, Kevin. Yea I just started playing around with Intrabar Order Generation last month. Testing so far for me has to be "live" instead of backtesting.

djvie11 

Thanks, Kevin. Yea I just started playing around with Intrabar Order Generation last month. Testing so far for me has to be "live" instead of backtesting.

Sounds good, although I would not recommend either approach (1. using intrabar, 2. doing "live" test instead of backtest).

Good Luck, I hope you find success!

Kevin

djvie11 

(...) "Close" = "The last available price for the bar." (...) Close refers to the closing price of the bar currently being evaluated by the EasyLanguage procedure. "

`Close` returns the last price of a bar, and what this price is depends on when the script is evaluated:

* When the script is evaluated on bar close (like indicators are on historical data), then `Close` returns the closing price of the bar.

* When the script is calculated on every tick (like real-time indicators and strategies, or a strategy backtested with intra-bar order generation), then `Close` refers to the current price of the bar. That can be the opening tick, closing tick, or any price in between.

This latter makes sense: since we don't know which real-time tick is the last tick of a price bar (there may or may not be more trades coming), `Close` returns the current price of the bar because, if no new ticks come in, then the current price of the bar is indeed the closing price. Hopefully that makes sense.