Automatic Position Size calculator drawing tool for NinjaTrader 8

Guide

Drawing the Position Size tool to automatically calculate the position size:

• 1st step: Select the account you wish to use for a new position.
• 2nd step: From your chart, click on the drawing tool icon to open the drawing tool menu and select the Position Sizing with the number of targets you need to scale out of your position.

You can also assign a hot key to the Position Sizing drawing tools by going to the NinjaTrader Control Center -> Tools -> Hot keys. This will allow you to start drawing on your chart from a keyboard shortcut which make it faster.

Important note about account selection:
The drawing tool will use the currently selected account from the Chart Trader window. Once the Position Sizing tool is drawn the attached account will always remain the same even if you change the selected account in the chart trader window. If you realized you drew the Position Sizing tool for the wrong account, delete that drawing tool, select the desired account and draw again the Position Sizing tool.

Commission cost:
If you have a Commission Template applied for the selected account, then the Risk and Target(s) dollar amount will include the applicable commission cost. For more information please review the NT8 help guide for Applying Commission Templates. You can also review the NT8 help guide for Working With Commission Templates.

Configuration:

The Position Sizing drawing tool properties window contains the following settings:

Interval visibility:
This setting allows you to see the Position Sizing tool on either any chart intervals (Timeframe) or only on the interval from which you drew the Position Sizing tool from and interval lower. For example, you draw the Position Sizing tool on a 60 minutes chart interval with the interval visibility set to “Draw_on_and_below_only” and then if you change the chart interval to 1 day (higher timeframe) the Position Sizing tool will be hidden. If you change back the chart interval to 15 minutes, the Position Sizing tool will be visible. This setting allows to go back to a higher timeframe and not get the chart clutter with many lower timeframe drawings.
If you set the Interval visibility to “All”, the drawing tool will always be visible.

Automatically place the Entry order:
When you select this setting, the Entry pending order will automatically be placed once you unselect the drawing.

You can also activate/deactivate this setting by right clicking on a Position Sizing drawing and selecting “Automatic Order Submission” from the context menu.

A green dot is visible on the left side of the Entry anchor point when the Automatic Order Submission is active.

You can also watch this video to understand how the Automatic Entry order works.

Alert when Entry get filled:
When the option called “Alert when entry get filled” is active, an alert will be sent through our Pushover alert Add-On when the Entry order get filled.

Alert when Stop or Reward get filled:
When the option called “Alert when Stop or Reward get filled” an alert will be sent when either the Stop or the target order get filled.

On the Properties window, you can see there is a section called “Settings for any account” and another section called “Group 1 account specific settings”

The section “Setting for any account” allows you to create a default template with your preferred settings for any account.
If you want to have different settings for specific accounts, you will use the section Group 1 account specific settings. In this case, in the “Account names for group 1 specific settings, you will type the account name exactly as they appear in the Display name or in the Chart Trader window. You separate the accounts with a comma “,” without any space. For example, Sim101,Sim102
If you need to have specific settings for an account, it is suggested to set all desired values in the Group 1 account specific settings and then save the properties in a default template by clicking on template at the bottom of the Properties window.

Risk calculation method:
You can select from:

• Percentage_of_selected_account_Cash_Value
  With this setting, the quantity (number of units to trade) will be calculated from the percentage of the account Cash Value that you set into the Risk value setting box. If you want to risk 0.5% of your account Cash Value, set 0.5 into the Risk value setting box.
  Note: The NT 8 definition of Cash Value is simply the cash value of the account.
• Percentage_of_selected_account_Buying_Power
  With this setting, the quantity (number of units to trade) will be calculated from the percentage of the account Buying Power that you set into the Risk value setting box. If you want to risk 0.5% of your account Buying Power, set 0.5 into the Risk value setting box.
  Note: The NT 8 definition of Buying Power is the account’s buying power, taking margin into account.
• Percentage_of_selected_account_Total_Cash_Balance
  With this setting, the quantity (number of units to trade) will be calculated from the percentage of the account Total Cash Balance that you set into the Risk value setting box. If you want to risk 0.5% of your account Total Cash Balance, set 0.5 into the Risk value setting box.
  Note: The NT 8 definition of Total Cash Balance is the total cash available in the account including any debits or credits.
• Percentage_of_selected_account_Net_Liquidation
  With this setting, the quantity (number of units to trade) will be calculated from the percentage of the account Net Liquidation that you set into the Risk value setting box. If you want to risk 0.5% of your account Net Liquidation, set 0.5 into the Risk value setting box.
  Note: The NT 8 definition of Net Liquidation is the total worth of the account’s assets (including margin).

Round to board lot for stock:
When selected, the quantity (number of shares) will be rounded down to the nearest block of 100 for the American stock. For the Toronto Stock exchange, the board lot is defined as follow:

• Share price lower than 0.10$, the board lot is 1000
• Share price from 0.10$ and lower than 1$, the board lot is 500
• Share price from 1$ and above, the board lot is 100.

Note: This setting will only round the quantity if the chart instrument has a type defined as Stock in the NinjaTrader Instrument settings.

Round to Forex lot for Forex:
The quantity (number of units) will be rounded to Forex lot, ie in block of 1000 units.
Note: This setting will only round the quantity if the chart instrument has a type defined as Foxes in the NinjaTrader instrument settings.

Use Buy/Sell Stop Limit for Entry:
By default, if the entry is a Stop Order (for example this will happen if the entry price is above the current market price for a long position) the tool will place a pending Stop Market order.

Select this option if you prefer to have a Stop Limit Order instead of a Stop Market Order for your Entry.

Buy/Sell Stop Limit offset in ticks:
This setting allows you to specify how many ticks beyond the Entry price you are willing the Entry Stop Limit Order to be filled. Please note the setting “Use Buy/Sell Stop Limit for Entry” must be selected for this setting to be effective.

For example if you enter 2 in this setting, and your entry price for a long position is at 3900.00 on ES, then at the worst case scenario you could to be filled 2 ticks beyond your Limit price at 3900.50.

Risk Template Name:
This setting allows you to set the applicable Risk Template Name. The Risk Template allows you to set a maximum order quantity for each instrument. The Position Sizing drawing tool will read the “Max Order Size” from the Risk Template applicable to the instrument and will limit the position size to this value. You can review the NT8 help guide for more information about Using the Risk window.

News Events restriction:
Some traders have restriction to trade around news events, for example some Prop Firms do not allow traders to open a trade a number of minutes before/after high impact news. The following settings allow you to setup the drawing tool to take into account these restrictions.

News events source:
You can select either Myfxbook or Forex Factory as the news provided. Forex Factory news will be downloaded automatically from the Forex Factory website. If you select Myfxbook, you need to manually get the news source file from Myfxbook website. Please follow this instruction for how to do that.

Minimum News event impact to restrict new position:
This setting allow you to select from which news event Impact the restriction will be applicable. For example, if you are not allowed to trade around High impact news events, select High. If you are not allowed to trade around Medium and High impact news event, select Medium_High. Setting the value to No_restriction will not cause any restriction related to news Impact level.

Restrict news Title by instrument:
Some Prop Firm do not allow to trade some instruments around some specific news events. For example, a Prop Firm could not allow to trade CL around the “Crude Oil Inventories”. If such restrictions apply to your trading, set the values as follow in this setting box.
You need to put the instrument name followed by a comma followed by the news event title. No space between the delimiters. The separate each instrument by a ; (without any space).
For example:

CL,Crude Oil Inventories,API Weekly Statistical Bulletin;ES,FOMC,Unemployment Rate

# of minutes before news event to restrict new position
This setting allow you to set how many minutes before the restrictive news event a new position can not be open.

# of minutes after news event to restrict new position
This setting allow you to set how many minutes after the restrictive news event a new position can not be open.

Reward 1 to 5 scale out %.
These settings allow you set how the position size should be split among the number of rewards.

If you selected the Position Sizing with 1 target, then you need to leave the Reward 1 scale out % to 100. All other Reward scale out % won’t have any effect.

If you selected the Position Sizing with 3 targets, then you need to:

• – set the percentage of the trade quantity to close when the price reaches the target 1 in the Reward 1 scale out % setting box, and you also need to
• – set the percentage of the trade quantity to close when the price reaches the target 2 in the Reward 2 scale out % setting box, and you also need to
• – set the percentage of the trade quantity to close when the price reaches the target 3 in the Reward 3 scale out % setting box and
• The values in the box Reward 4 scale out % and Reward 5 scale out % wont have any effect.
• Please make sure the sum of Reward 1, Reward 2 and Reward 3 % is 100. If the sum is not 100 you will get this error message

Allow manual override of auto target
This setting works in conjunction with the “Reward ratio for auto target” settings.
When this setting is active, you can manually move the Reward anchor points manually. If the trader decides to move a reward anchor, that anchor is no longer automatically calculated so it will remain static until the trader manually move it again.
When not active, the Reward anchors can’t be adjusted as the value is automatically calculated from the “Reward ratio for auto target” settings.

Calculate auto target from net amount values:
By default the tool calculate the auto target from ticks, which means if you set 2 in the option called “Reward 1 ratio for auto target” and you have 10 ticks between the stop and the entry, the target 1 will be automatically placed 10 ticks away from the entry.

If you activate the option called “Calculate auto target from net amount values” the target will be placed with the required number of ticks away from the entry such that the target amount value will be as close as possible to the net amount of risk including the commission cost.

Reward 1 to 5 ratio for auto target:
When you input a number different than 0, that number is used to automatically calculate the respective Reward price based on the number of ticks for the Risk. For example, if there are 10 ticks between the Entry and the Risk, and this setting has a value of 1.5, that the Reward will automatically be created 15 ticks away from the Entry.

When this setting is active, you don’t need to draw the Reward anchors. Please note that for multiple targets, you can set a ratio only for specific targets. In that case, you will manually draw the Rewards that don’t have a ratio set and the tool will automatically draw the Rewards that have a ratio value different than 0.

Risk offset in ticks:
When a value different than 0 is set, the risk price will automatically be offset by this many ticks. The value could be positive or negative. A positive offset value increases the risk whereas a negative offset value reduces the risk.

For example when this setting has a value of 1, for a long position on ES if you drew the risk at a price of 3900.50 the tool will automatically move the risk anchor to 3900.25 increasing the risk by 1 tick. When this setting has a value of -1, for a long position on ES if you drew the risk at a price of 3900.50 the tool will automatically move the risk anchor to 3900.75 decreasing the risk by 1 tick.

This setting is useful for traders who like to snap the risk to a previous bar point like the low of the bar but prefer to have a small offset.

Please note that this setting won’t have any effect if changed for an existing drawing. Instead you need to save this setting as a Default Template and it will be effective for the subsequent Position Sizing tool you draw.

Entry offset in ticks:
When a value different than 0 is set, the entry price will automatically be offset by this many ticks. The value could be positive or negative. A positive offset value will move the entry towards the profit target by that number of ticks. A negative offset value will move the entry towards the risk by that number of ticks.

For example when this setting has a value of 1, for a long position on ES if you drew the entry at a price of 3900.50 the tool will automatically move the entry anchor to 3900.75. When this setting has a value of -1, for a long position on ES if you drew the entry at a price of 3900.50 the tool will automatically move the entry anchor to 3900.25.

This setting is useful for traders who like to snap the entry to a previous bar point like the low of the bar but prefer to have a small offset.

Please note that this setting won’t have any effect if changed for an existing drawing. Instead you need to save this setting as a Default Template and it will be effective for the subsequent Position Sizing tool you draw.

# of ticks to stagger Stop Orders
NinjaTrader combine all orders that are at the same price into a single order line that is visible on the chart. When you are using multiple rewards, if you would like to independently manage each stop associated to each reward from your chart, then the workaround is to use a different price value for each stop. This way NinjaTrader will show a specific order line on the chart for each Stop and you can therefore manually manage each stop independently from your chart.

To activate this feature you need to you input by how many tick(s) increment each Stop order price should be. A positive value will move the Stops further away from the Entry and a negative value will move the Stops closer from the Entry.

Hold SHIFT key to snap Entry price to current price:
When this option is active, when the Position Sizing drawing is selected and when you hold down the SHIFT key, the Entry anchor price will follow the current market price.

Place Market Order for Entry when SHIFT key is down:
You now have the option to use Market Order to enter when holding down the Shift key while the “Automatically place the Entry order” option is active. 

To place market order instead of limit order, the following settings needs to be set. 

• – The “Automatically place the Entry order” option needs to be active.
• – The “Hold SHIFT key to snap Entry price to current price” option needs to be active.
• – The “Place Market Order for Entry when SHIFT key is down” option needs to be active.

Then you draw the Position Sizing tool to place the Stop Loss at the desired location (entry and TP) then when holding down the Shift key, the entry price will snap to the current price and if the Shift key is down when the user click outside of the Position Sizing drawing, then a market order is placed. If the Shift key is not down when clicking outside of the Position Sizing drawing, then a limit order is placed.

Round Qty from the last reward
When using more than one reward, when the total quantity for the trade can not be divided evenly across all rewards, by default the rounding will be done from the first reward. With this option active, the rounding will be done from the last reward.

Do not calculate exchange rate
When the instrument currency is different than the account currency, by default the tool automatically calculates all amounts in the account currency and adjust the number of units accordingly. To do so, a valid exchange rate is required. You therefore need to have data for the corresponding Forex pair. For example if the account is in Euro and the instrument is ES, you need to have recent data for EURUSD Forex instrument. There are different ways to get the data such as opening a chart or adding this instrument to the Market Analyser window. You can use the free end of day Kinetick data or a realtime data feed service that includes Forex data.

When this option is active, the tool will not calculate the amounts in the account currency but will instead use the instrument currency.

Do not use a Target for the last reward:
When this option is active, only a Stop order will be place but the associated Target order won’t be placed and won’t be visible. This allows to trail the stop.

If the Properties window is used to change the option from don’t use the last reward to use the last reward, the last reward anchor will be behind the entry anchor.

Visible info section:

The settings for the Visible info section are as follow:

Number of digits to show Reward to Risk Ratio
You can select with how many decimal places the Reward to Risk ratios are rounded by entering the value in this setting. For example, if the ratio is 1.567 and you enter 1, the ratio will be displayed as 1.6 but if you enter 2 the ratio will be displayed as 1.57.

Reward to Risk projection lines
If you would like to see a visual reference of where some Reward to Risk ratios are, you simply input the ratio values you want separated by ; (the semi colon character). For example, if you would like to see the 1R, the 1.5R and 2R levels you will input the following: 1; 1.5; 2.

Please note that you need to use the Decimal symbol as defined in the Microsoft Windows regional setting, so for example, if your regional settings are set to Germany, you will need to use a , (comma) instead of . as decimal symbol. You can add as many ratios as you want.

You can save your settings in a Default Template file if you want this feature every time you use the tool.

You can customize the Reward to Risk ratio lines style under the Lines style section.

Show R:R values over projection lines:
When you activate the option called “Show R:R values over projection lines” which is under the “Visible info” section, each Reward to Risk projection lines will be labeled.

Text visibility:
You can select from:

• VisibleWhenSelected
  The text will be visible when you click on the drawing tool. Otherwise it will be hidden.
• AlwaysVisible
  The text will always be visible.
• DoNotShow
  The text will always be hidden.

Line style section

You can customize the look of the entry, stop and reward(s) lines to your preferences. You can also select to extend the lines to the right edge of the chart and/or to the left edge of the chart.

Context Menu settings

If you would like to be able to quickly change the default risk value for a specific position, you can activate the option “Show predefined risk values” from the “Context menu settings” section. You also need to enter your desired predefined risk values for each risk calculation method in the respective box below.
For example, let say you would like to be able to quickly change the % of risk of the account Cash Value from 0.5%, 0.8%, 1% and 1.5%. You will need to enter each predefined risk value separated by a comma followed by a space. Ie, 0.5, 0.8, 1, 1.5 in the “Predefined risk values for % of Cash Value” box. To get these values by default, please save your settings as the Default Template.
Then when you right click on the Position Sizing drawing tool, you will get this context menu that allow you to quickly change the % of risk used to calculate the position size.

Submitting order:
When you are ready to place the order related to the Position Sizing drawing tool you drew, you can right click on the Position Sizing tool and click on Submit the associated orders.

This will automatically create a pending order for your entry and will automatically place OCO orders for the stop loss and each profit targets. OCO stands for One-Cancels-Other which is similar than creating an ATM strategy that is composed of a profit target and a stop loss but using our tool eliminates all possible typing errors when creating the ATM strategy.

If you drew a long position with the Position Sizing drawing tool:

• If the Position Sizing drawing tool entry price is between the instrument current bid and ask, a buy market order will be submitted.
• If the current instrument price is above the Position Sizing drawing tool entry price, a pending buy limit order will be submitted.
• If the current instrument price is below the Position Sizing drawing tool entry price, a pending buy stop order will be submitted.

If you drew a short position with the Position Sizing drawing tool:

• If the Position Sizing drawing tool entry price is between the instrument current bid and ask, a sell market order will be submitted.
• If the current instrument price is above the Position Sizing drawing tool entry price, a pending sell stop order will be submitted.
• If the current instrument price is below the Position Sizing drawing tool entry price, a pending sell limit order will be submitted.

If a news event restriction is active and you submit the order, the order won’t be submitted and you will get this pop up message:

If you have an active pending Entry order from a Position Sizing drawing tool that has news event restriction, when the news event restriction will become in effect, you will get this pop up message and the pending order will automatically be cancelled.

If you take no action, the order will automatically be re-submitted once the news event restriction is over. If you prefer to not get the order automatically re-submitted once the news restriction is over, you can right click on the drawing tool and select “Cancel the pending re-submission order due for after News Event”. Once you are ready to re-submit the associated order to this drawing tool, you can right click again on that tool and select “Submit associated orders”.

Important note about pending Entry orders:

Deleting the Position Sizing drawing tool while the Entry order is pending
If you submitted a entry order from a Position Sizing tool and while the Entry order is still pending you delete the related Position Sizing drawing tool from the chart, the associated Stop(s) and Target(s) OCO orders will still be placed once the Entry order get filled.

Modifying the Position Sizing drawing properties while the Entry order is pending
If you submitted a entry order from a Position Sizing tool and while the Entry order is still pending you change the related Position Sizing drawing tool properties, the associated Stop(s) and Target(s) OCO orders will still be placed according to the original settings. For example you place a pending Entry order for qty 1 contract and while the Entry is pending, you modify the Position Sizing drawing to qty 2 contrats, the pending Entry order remain for 1 contract the once filled, the Stop and Target OCO order will be placed for 1 contract but for the updated Stop and Target price values.

Disclaimer regarding submitting orders with our Position Sizing Drawing Tool:
Please use a Sim account or the Market Replay connection to get familiar with how the orders are submitted from our Position Sizing drawing tool. We will not be responsible for any loss you may incur by using our Products.