BlackBird’s controls and trade information sit in chart panels. They dock: drag a panel to any edge of the chart, or out of the chart window altogether, to arrange them the way you like.
Layout button
Turns panels on or off, and saves or loads layouts. A layout saves only where the panels are and which are showing, not any settings.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Layout drop-down | Restores a saved layout. |
| Open | Opens a window listing all saved layouts. |
| Save | Saves the current layout. |
| Reset | Puts every panel back where it started, in its default state. |
| Panel list | Turns each panel on or off. A check mark means it’s showing. |
| Order Settings | Opens the BlackBird Settings window. |
Trade Controls panel
Turns automated trading on and off, and places and closes trades by hand.
| What it does | |
|---|---|
| 1. Auto Trading On / Off | Turns automated trading on or off instantly. More precisely, it turns the Trade Signals input on or off: when off, BlackBird ignores new trade signals and places no new entries, but keeps managing any open, working and pending orders, Trailing Actions included. To cancel orders, use Close. Its starting state is set by Start Auto Trading On. |
| 2. Long Enabled / Short Enabled | Turns automated trading off in one direction. For example, click Short Enabled to ignore short trade signals. |
| 3. Order entry buttons | Places an entry by hand, using your order sets. If a position is open in the other direction, it is closed and the trade reversed. Go Long / Go Short: the order sets exactly as defined. Buy Ask / Sell Ask: a buy stop or sell limit at the current ask. Buy Bid / Sell Bid: a buy limit or sell stop at the current bid. |
| 4. Close | Closes this BlackBird’s positions and cancels its pending and working orders. Positions and orders from other BlackBirds, or placed any other way, aren’t touched. |
Grayed-out buttons
All buttons gray: no order set is defined yet, so BlackBird doesn’t know what orders to submit.
One side gray: a trade in that direction is active (placed by hand or automatically). This prevents opening too many contracts by accident. To add contracts, use Scale In on the Order Monitor panel.
No order flags on the chart doesn’t mean there is no trade: an order may be pending. The Info panel shows the trade’s state.
Each BlackBird manages only its own orders
NinjaTrader runs each strategy separately, so a BlackBird doesn’t know about other BlackBirds, or about other trades in the account. Its buttons only act on the orders it placed itself.
NinjaTrader’s Close buttons, and lost orders
NinjaTrader’s own Close buttons (Chart Trader, SuperDOM) flatten every position on that instrument and disable any strategy running on it, BlackBird included. See the tips in How to run a NinjaScript strategy in a chart and this forum thread.
If an error makes NinjaTrader lose track of live orders or a position, BlackBird can’t close or cancel them. Use the Control Center’s Positions tab to flatten and cancel instead.
Info panel
The position’s status, and bid, ask and last prices.
| What it shows | |
|---|---|
| 1. Position | Upper left: the open contracts, green with L for long or red with S for short, or Pending. Upper right: the average entry price. Bottom: the unrealized P&L of the open contracts. Click it to switch between ticks, percent and currency. When flat, it shows the realized net P&L of real-time trades since BlackBird started. |
| 2. Ask, Last, Bid | The current ask, last trade and bid prices, with volume on the right. Blank parts fill in when the next live tick arrives. |
Pending
A trade shows Pending for one of two reasons:
- A limit or stop entry order is at the exchange, waiting to fill. Its order flags are on the chart.
- An entry order hasn’t been submitted yet, because it is waiting for other conditions (the Place option). There are no order flags, because nothing is at the exchange yet.
Why P&L can differ
It resets. The P&L comes from NinjaTrader (it always matches the Control Center’s Strategies tab), and resets to zero whenever BlackBird is disabled and enabled, or the chart reloads (for example, adding or changing an indicator). For a daily total, use the Performance panel.
Other displays measure something else. The SuperDOM shows the last trade’s or the account’s realized P&L, and NinjaTrader’s Chart Trader can also differ by a tick. Those differences come from NinjaTrader.
Risk Reward panel
The reward-to-risk ratio of the most recent order sets, not of the whole position. For example, a trade opened with three order sets shows all three; after scaling in, it shows the order set used to scale in.
Settings panel
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| File name | The settings file that is loaded. |
| Order Settings | Opens the BlackBird Settings window, where everything is set up: order sets, trade signals, and risk, money management and scheduling rules. |
| Drop-down arrow | A list of recently saved settings files. Click one to load it. |
Dynamic Planning panel
Plan a trade on the chart before placing it. See Dynamic Planning.
Order Monitor panel
The status of each order set’s orders, with buttons to manage them. All of them act on this BlackBird’s orders only.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Preview Long / Short | Draws where the entry (a diamond) and the profit target and stop-loss (dots, in the order colors from the Order Options tab) would first be placed, on every bar. Trailing isn’t shown. |
| Global Breakeven | Moves every stop-loss to breakeven (the average entry price). The up/down buttons beside it set a tick offset from breakeven, which the Breakeven Now buttons use too. |
| Global Auto Trail | Turns trailing on or off for every order: entries, profit targets and stop-losses. The lock beside it locks that state. See below. |
| 1. Order set name | The name of the order set. |
| 2. Order status | Each order’s price (once live) and status (Pending, Filled, Canceled and so on): the entry in blue at the top, the profit target in green, the stop-loss at the bottom. Double-click a price to change it. |
| Auto Trailing On / Off | Turns trailing on or off for this order set (its entry, profit target and stop-loss). Each order set has its own. The lock beside it locks that state. |
| Breakeven Now | Moves this order set’s stop-loss to breakeven, plus the Global Breakeven offset. |
| Scale In | Adds contracts to the position, with this order set’s entry order type, placed from the current price (for example, a limit at the close -1 tick uses the current close). The − and + buttons set how many contracts, overriding the order set. It only works with a position open, or an entry order working; it won’t open a new position. |
Moving an order turns off its trailing
Moving an order with the mouse turns off trailing for its whole order set, and the set’s button switches to Auto Trailing Off: you have overridden its rules. Click the button to turn trailing back on. Moving an order that has no trailing rules doesn’t turn anything off.
For example, if order set B’s stop-loss has trailing rules and you move it, trailing stops for B’s stop-loss and for B’s profit target. Moving order set A’s fixed stop-loss (no trailing rules) changes nothing.
Locking trailing on (with the lock, globally or per order set) keeps it on when you move an order. The trailing rule will probably move the order straight back, if the rule repeats.
Scaling in several times
The panel shows only the most recent order set used to scale in. The earlier ones are in the Control Center’s Orders tab.
Performance panel
Today’s statistics for real-time trades (not backtests; those are in NinjaTrader’s Strategy Performance report). They reset at midnight by your computer’s clock, so if you trade US markets from another time zone, consider setting the trading computer to US Eastern time.
| Area | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Calculation Mode is… | A reminder of the calculation mode chosen in Money Management. |
| Select View | Individual or Global statistics (see Money Management). The … button opens Override Account Performance. |
| Daily Summary | Total Net Profit: gross profit minus gross loss. It may not match the Info panel or the Strategies tab. Profit Factor: gross profit / gross loss; above 1.0 means more profit than loss. High Watermark: today’s highest net profit. High Watermark Stop: if net profit falls below this, BlackBird stops taking new trades for the rest of the day (see Stop Trading After). |
| Daily Counts | Wins, Losers and Total Trades. Percent Profitable: wins / total trades; above 50% means more winners than losers. |
| Daily Averages | Average Trade: net profit / total trades. Average Win: gross profit / wins. Average Loss: gross loss / losers. Avg Win / Avg Loss: above 1.0 means winners are bigger than losers on average. |
After a reload
NinjaTrader resets a strategy’s P&L whenever it restarts or reloads. Which statistics survive depends on Money Management’s PnL Calculation Mode: in Individual and Group Mode, BlackBird saves the day’s trades and restores them. Since version 8.3.6.4, BlackBirds on the same instrument each keep their own data.
Videos
An overview of the chart panels and Dynamic Planning.