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Tutorial 46 – What is an intrabarpersist variable and how to use it?

Welcome to tutorial 46 in this series of tutorials designed to help you learn EasyLanguage programming skills. EasyLanguage is a programming language that is part of the TradeStation trading platform. It can be used to write programs to help in the technical analysis and trading of foreign exchange (forex or FX), commodities (e.g. the Dow e-mini, S&P e-mini etc), options, and stocks.

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Intrabarpersist variables, ‘enable intrabar order generation and calculation’, and ‘use look inside bar backtesting’

This tutorial aims to shed some light on the important strategy components: Intrabarpersist variables, ‘enable intrabar order generation and calculation’, and ‘use look inside bar backtesting.’ The video below shows a practical demonstration of using intrabarpersist variables and how their effect varies depending on whether ‘enable intrabar order generation and calculation’ and ‘use look inside bar backtesting’ are enabled. The video is based on a 10 minute chart using the 1 minute look inside bar backtesting setting.

With strategies, if ‘enable intrabar order generation and calculation’ is not enabled then each bar is only evaluated on the close of the bar. If ‘enable intrabar order generation and calculation’ is enabled but ‘use look inside bar backtesting’ is not, then TradeStation recognizes 4 “data points” within each bar being evaluated: open, low, high and close. TradeStation makes assumptions about whether low comes before high or vice versa.

If ‘enable intrabar order generation and calculation’, and ‘use look inside bar backtesting’ are enabled, then, for the intraday ‘look inside bar backtesting’ setting, the the strategy is evaluated four times for each look-inside interval. For example, in the video example I show a ten minute bar and the ‘use look inside bar backtesting’ is set to 1 minute. This means that the strategy is evaluated 4 times per minute bar. In addition the final ‘tick’ of the bar is repeated for intraday settings (as opposed to tick settings). I explain this in the video.

TO THE BEST OF MARKPLEX CORPORATION’S KNOWLEDGE, ALL OF THE INFORMATION ON THIS PAGE IS CORRECT, AND IT IS PROVIDED IN THE HOPE THAT IT WILL BE USEFUL. HOWEVER, MARKPLEX CORPORATION ASSUMES NO LIABILITY FOR ANY DAMAGES, DIRECT OR OTHERWISE, RESULTING FROM THE USE OF THIS INFORMATION AND/OR PROGRAM(S) DESCRIBED, AND NO WARRANTY IS MADE REGARDING ITS ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS. USE OF THIS INFORMATION AND/OR PROGRAMS DESCRIBED IS AT YOUR OWN RISK.

ANY EASYLANGUAGE OR POWERLANGUAGE TRADING STRATEGIES, SIGNALS, STUDIES, INDICATORS, SHOWME STUDIES, PAINTBAR STUDIES, PROBABILITYMAP STUDIES, ACTIVITYBAR STUDIES, FUNCTIONS (AND PARTS THEREOF) AND ASSOCIATED TECHNIQUES REFERRED TO, INCLUDED IN OR ATTACHED TO THIS TUTORIAL OR PROGRAM DESCRIPTION ARE EXAMPLES ONLY, AND HAVE BEEN INCLUDED SOLELY FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. MARKPLEX CORPORATION. DOES NOT RECOMMEND THAT YOU USE ANY SUCH TRADING STRATEGIES, SIGNALS, STUDIES, INDICATORS, SHOWME STUDIES, PAINTBAR STUDIES, PROBABILITYMAP STUDIES, ACTIVITYBAR STUDIES, FUNCTIONS (OR ANY PARTS THEREOF) OR TECHNIQUES. THE USE OF ANY SUCH TRADING STRATEGIES, SIGNALS, STUDIES, INDICATORS, SHOWME STUDIES, PAINTBAR STUDIES, PROBABILITYMAP STUDIES, ACTIVITYBAR STUDIES, FUNCTIONS AND TECHNIQUES DOES NOT GUARANTEE THAT YOU WILL MAKE PROFITS, INCREASE PROFITS, OR MINIMIZE LOSSES.

Tutorial 46 Video – Using intrabarpersist variables

If you see any errors in this tutorial – or we have not made something clear, we would be most grateful if you could please let us know. E-mail us at: tutorials@markplex.com. Also, let us know if you have any ideas for new tutorials.