Management Buttons


File Management

This section allows your BlackBird settings to be saved to a file and restored for later use.  The Clear button will remove all settings, resetting BlackBird to its default settings.

In order for BlackBird to restart exactly the same way after restarting NinjaTrader, your settings must be saved to a file. Upon restarting NinjaTrader, BlackBird will restore the file that it had open before NinjaTrader was closed.

Risk Management

Risk management provides a central location to set minimum risk criteria. These options primarily apply when BlackBird is used for automated trading.  See each description for more information.

Money Management

Money management provides various options to automatically disable auto trading for the remainder of the day.  The day ends at midnight per your computer's time clock.  Trading will resume again after midnight. These options only apply when BlackBird is used for automated trading.  They have no effect on manually/discretionarily placed trades.
BlackBird has a unique feature.  It remembers the prior realized trade data, for each instrument, in the event the strategy is disabled and re-enabled again during the same day.  See the PnL Calculation Mode section below for important information on this feature.  In the event NinjaTrader crashes, NinjaTrader is not capable of reconnecting open orders back to BlackBird.  Those orders will have to be flattened manually.

Disabling the strategy (i.e. BlackBird) means the strategy was shut-down, turned off, or the chart was reloaded by any means.  This does not apply to clicking the 'Auto Trader' button to Disabled, because that simply stops auto trading, and BlackBird is still running.

Loss Limit Guarantee
Money management loss settings do not and can not guarantee a maximum loss amount.  The exchanges do not offer any such mechanism or order type that guarantees a maximum loss amount, and therefore neither does NinjaTrader, and neither does BlackBird.  Stop market orders are always subject to slippage, and stop limit orders are subject to no-fills.  If you do not understand why that is, please contact your broker or licensed professional for assistance.
The Net Max Loss and Daily Watermark money management options activate when the realized loss amount is equal to or more than the settings amount.  The 'Enforce During Live Trade' modifier options use unrealized losses to flatten and halt trading in real-time, but there is no guarantee that a trade can be flattened exactly at the desired loss amount.  Expect some amount of slippage and thus additional loss.  Keep in mind, the more contracts being traded multiplies the slippage loss.


MODE


DAILY   SAFEGUARDS

These safeguards operate on a per trade position basis, not per order or per contract, as per NinjaTrader's statistics calculations.  The trade statistics used in these safeguards are calculated by NinjaTrader.
e.g.  If BlackBird is set up with three order sets of 1 contract each.  That is 3 contracts per 1 single trade.  The net profit or loss of all 3 contracts determines whether the trade is a win or loss.
If the Max Consecutive Wins is set to 2, and a winning trade occurs, and all 3 orders were winners, however only 1 trade was a win.  Thus, the Max Consecutive Wins has not been satisfied yet.  The next trade must also be a net win as well.

Backtesting with 'Enforce During Live Trade' Options:  This ability has limitations during backtests.  NinjaTrader does not provide live/real-time P&L data during backtesting.  Unrealized P&L data is updated on a closed bar by closed bar basis.  Therefore, this setting has limited effectiveness and accuracy during backtesting.  As the name implies, it is for live trades.

Tick Replay:  Enabling this will improve accuracy, but will also significantly slow the backtesting process as NinjaTrader documentation states.

Enforce During Live Trade:  This option enables real-time evaluation of P&L data, calculated by NinjaTrader, and thus flattens an open position when the P&L limit has been reached.  As noted in the red section above, loss limits can never be guaranteed, and also see section 'Backtesting with Enforce During Live Trade Options' listed above.


ACCOUNT   RISK


DAILY   WATERMARK

A daily watermark is like a trailing stop-loss for realized net profit earned per day.  But, it is not a stop-loss.   The intent is to protect some of the daily profits, instead trading all the profits away.  Read 'Activate Watermark After' to learn when the watermark function is activated.  Read 'Stop Trading After' to learn how the watermark stop-trading threshold value is calculated and how profits are protected.  The P&L from manual trades are excluded from the high watermark calculations.  The Watermark feature is currently only for automated trading.
Note:  The watermark is updated when realized P&L occur (I.E. after the entire position is flat).  The high watermark does not update in real-time like a trailing stop-loss would.

Scheduling

This feature allows you to select when automated trading is permitted.  This unique graphical interface can load a NinjaTrader Trading Hours template which can then be easily modified to create a custom trading schedule.  Automated trade signals are executed only during the trading period times shown in green.  Trade signals that occur outside of the trading schedule are ignored.  Also, scale-in entry orders in a pending state (entry orders using the Place After option, and waiting to be submitted to the market) are canceled when a trading period ends.
Note:  Use Force Trades To Exit to cancel any scale-in orders that are pending.


Override Account Performance

This feature provides basic performance metrics, and the ability or change them incase you turned on BlackBird late and want to include any missed trade data in the performance metrics.  That may be desired when using Money Management rules, so that the M/M rules are working with missed trade data.  Advanced statistical data can be gathered from NinjaTrader's Strategy Performance report.  The base Performance data is originated by NinjaTrader, not BlackBird.


Options

This is where miscellaneous options are located. Options that are not associated with other components.



Alerts

This option will play custom audio sounds when automated trade signals occur.  Keep in mind that NinjaTrader audio alerts always override BlackBird audio alerts.


Help Menu


This provides easy access to various help sections.