Unwanted - cBot Opening new trades each bar

Quat-fro

Hi,
Less than a week into coding, so please be gentle with me! I've set up a bot based on some data from youTube videos and carried on the game by adding my own parameters and logic along the way.

The trading logic has mostly come from the sample trend cBot where the terms cancel each other out so that there is only ever one trade in action at a time, for some reason however it's not working this time around and opens a new position each bar, which as I'm sure you can imagine gets ridiculous quite quickly! (Note: a lot of MACD dead wood I've just left dormant)

What am I missing? Here's the full code. Thanks in advance!

using System;
using cAlgo.API;
using cAlgo.API.Collections;
using cAlgo.API.Indicators;
using cAlgo.API.Internals;

namespace cAlgo.Robots
{
    [Robot(AccessRights = AccessRights.None, AddIndicators = true)]
    public class NNFXBot6 : Robot
    {
         [Parameter("Stop Loss ATR Multiplier", Group = "Risk Structure", DefaultValue = 1.5)]
        public int SLATRM { get; set; }
        
        [Parameter("Take Profit ATR Multiplier", Group = "Risk Structure", DefaultValue = 1.0)]
        public int TPATRM { get; set; }
        /*
        [Parameter("Quantity (Lots)", Group = "Volume", DefaultValue = 1, MinValue = 0.01, Step = 0.01)]
        public double Quantity { get; set; }
        */

        [Parameter("Slow MA Type", Group = "Slow Moving Average")]
        public MovingAverageType SMAType { get; set; }
        
        [Parameter("Fast MA Type", Group = "Fast Moving Average")]
        public MovingAverageType FMAType { get; set; }
        

        [Parameter("Source", Group = "Moving Average")]
        public DataSeries SourceSeries { get; set; }

        [Parameter("Slow Periods", Group = "Moving Average", DefaultValue = 10)]
        public int SlowPeriods { get; set; }

        [Parameter("Fast Periods", Group = "Moving Average", DefaultValue = 5)]
        public int FastPeriods { get; set; }        
        
        
         private MovingAverage slowMa;
         private MovingAverage fastMa;
                        
        //Create Indicator Variables
        private AverageTrueRange atr;
        private MacdCrossOver macd; 
        private const string label = "Sample Trend cBot";
      
        protected override void OnStart()
        {
            //Load indicators on startup            
            atr = Indicators.AverageTrueRange(14, MovingAverageType.Exponential);
            macd = Indicators.MacdCrossOver(26, 12, 9);
            //My own additions
            fastMa = Indicators.MovingAverage(SourceSeries, FastPeriods, FMAType);
            slowMa = Indicators.MovingAverage(SourceSeries, SlowPeriods, SMAType);
            
        }

        protected override void OnBar()
        {
            //Calculate trade amount based on ATR            
            var PrevATR = Math.Round(atr.Result.Last(1) / Symbol.PipSize);
            var TradeAmount = (Account.Equity * 0.02) / (1 * PrevATR * Symbol.PipValue);
            TradeAmount = Symbol.NormalizeVolumeInUnits(TradeAmount, RoundingMode.Down);
            
            //Two Line Cross Example
            /*
            var MACDLine = macd.MACD.Last(1);
            var PrevMACDLine = macd.MACD.Last(2);
            var Signal = macd.Signal.Last(1);
            var prevSignal = macd.Signal.Last(2);
            */
            var curSlowMa = slowMa.Result.Last(0);            
            var curFastMa = fastMa.Result.Last(0);
            var prevFastMa = fastMa.Result.Last(1);
            var prevSlowMa = slowMa.Result.Last(1);
            var StopLoss = SLATRM;
            var TakeProfit = TPATRM;
            var longPosition = Positions.Find(label, SymbolName, TradeType.Buy);
            var shortPosition = Positions.Find(label, SymbolName, TradeType.Sell);
            
            //Check for Continuation Signal
            if (curFastMa > curSlowMa  && longPosition == null)
            {   
                if (shortPosition != null)
                    ClosePosition(shortPosition);
                ExecuteMarketOrder(TradeType.Buy, SymbolName, TradeAmount, "EMA x Up SMA", StopLoss * PrevATR, TakeProfit * PrevATR);
            }
            else if (curFastMa < curSlowMa  && shortPosition == null)
            {
                if (longPosition != null)
                    ClosePosition(longPosition);
                ExecuteMarketOrder(TradeType.Sell, SymbolName, TradeAmount, "EMA x Down SMA", StopLoss * PrevATR, TakeProfit * PrevATR);
            }
                     
            
        }

        protected override void OnStop()
        {
            // Handle cBot stop here
        }
    }
}

Sebastian

According to your code on each bar close it will open a new trade if there is a signal, you need to add some additional code if you want a single trade open at any time, check is a buy trade is open, and if there is one open, do not open another one.

Quat-fro

@Sebastian - Thank you, I'm very new to this lark. I did manage to solve this issue using a position counter in the end, now I have a maximum of 2 trades open at once. I really appreciate your input.

Is there a rule for if and else if functions? Can I use ifs concurrently or does an else if HAVE to follow an if to create the counter argument?

(If there's a help section you could guide me to in order to grasp this topic I'd be very grateful)

Sebastian

You can try this, if there are less than 2 trades open, it will open a new trade.

if(Positions.FindAll(Symbol).Count() < 2)
{
       /// Open a new position
}