Re: EL OpenPositionProfit exit query

[Bob Fulks <bfulks@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 7:18 PM +0100 9/4/01, Ian Waugh wrote:

>Seems a bit loopy. Can't it work out the entry price *after* the buy bar
>but before the next one?

Your code runs conceptually on each bar after the close of the bar but before the open of the next bar. While the data is accumulating for a bar you code is not running. It is waiting for the end of the bar to run again.

So if you want something to occur withing some bar, you need o issue the order while your code runs at the end of the previous bar.

>So is there any way to buy at the close and then get out on a stop or some
>condition interbar on the following bar...? I can't believe this is an
>unreasonable - or rare - requirement.

It is very common. From your original post:

   if blah blah blah... then buy this bar at close; {this bit works just fine}
   if OpenPositionProfit<-50 then exitlong;

It looks as if you want to buy 1 contract at the close of a bar and set an exit stoploss of $50. This code should do it:

   if blah blah blah... then begin
      Buy this bar at close;
      XLStop = Close - 50 / BigPointValue;   {Calculate stop value}
   end;
   ExitLong next bar at XLStop stop;         {Keep stop in place for each bar}

The ExitLong statement is only good for the next bar so it has to be executed on every bar to keep the stop in place. But you only want to set the stop value from the Close of the entry bar so you need to save that value.

The statement:

   ExitLong next bar at Close - 50 / BigPointValue stop;

would recalculate the stop value each bar which is not what you appear to want.

Bob Fulks