Strategy with Signals

Operating backtrader is also possible without having to write a Strategy. Although this is the preferred way, due to the object hierarchy which makes up the machinery, using Signals is also possible.

Note

Available from version 1.8.0.x

Quick summary:

Instead of writing a Strategy class, instantiating Indicators, writing the buy/sell logic …
The end user add Signals (indicators anyhow) and the rest is done in the background

Quick example:

import backtrader as bt

data = bt.feeds.OneOfTheFeeds(dataname='mydataname')
cerebro.adddata(data)

cerebro.add_signal(bt.SIGNAL_LONGSHORT, MySignal)
cerebro.run()

Et voilá!.

Of course the Signal itself is missing. Let’s define a very dum Signal which yields:

Long indication if the close price is above a Simple Moving Average
Short indication if the close price is below a Simple Moving Average

The definition:

class MySignal(bt.Indicator):
    lines = ('signal',)
    params = (('period', 30),)

    def __init__(self):
        self.lines.signal = self.data - bt.indicators.SMA(period=self.p.period)

And now it is really done. When run is executed Cerebro will take care of instantiating a special Strategy instance which knows what to do with the Signals.

Initial FAQ

How is the volume of buy/sell operations determined?

A cerebro instance adds automatically a FixedSize sizer to strategies. The end user can change the sizer to alter the policy with cerebro.addsizer
How are orders executed?

The execution type is Market and the validity is Good Until Canceled

Signals technicalities

From a technical and theoretical point of view can be as described:

A callable that returns another object when called (only once)

This is in most cases the instantiation of a class, but must not be
Supports the __getitem__ interface. The only requested key/index will be 0

From a practical point of view and looking at the example above a Signal is:

A lines object from the backtrader ecosystem, mostly an Indicator

This helps when using other Indicators like when in the example the Simple Moving Average is used.

Signals indications

The signals delivers indications when queried with signal[0] and the meaning is:

> 0 -> long indication
´< 0 -> short indication
´== 0 -> No indication

The example does simple arithmetic with self.data - SMA and:

Issues a long indication when the data is above the SMA
Issues a short indication when the data is below the SMA

Note

When no specific price field is indicated for the data, the close price is the reference price is.

Signals Types

The constants indicated below as seen in the example above, are directly available from the main bactrader module as in:

import backtrader as bt

bt.SIGNAL_LONG

There are 5 types of Signals, broken in 2 groups.

Main Group:

LONGSHORT: both long and short indications from this signal are taken
LONG:
- long indications are taken to go long
- short indications are taken to close the long position. But:
- If a LONGEXIT (see below) signal is in the system it will be used to exit the long
- If a SHORT signal is available and no LONGEXIT is available , it will be used to close a long before opening a short
SHORT:
- short indications are taken to go short
- long indications are taken to close the short position. But:
- If a SHORTEXIT (see below) signal is in the system it will be used to exit the short
- If a LONG signal is available and no SHORTEXIT is available , it will be used to close a short before opening a long

Exit Group:

This 2 signals are meant to override others and provide criteria for exitins a long/short position

LONGEXIT: short indications are taken to exit long positions
SHORTEXIT: long indications are taken to exit short positions

Accumulation and Order Concurrency

The sample Signal shown above will issue long and short indications on a constant basis, because it simply substracts the SMA value from the close price and this will always be either > 0 and < 0 (a couple of times == 0)

This would lead to a continuous generation of orders that would produce 2 situations:

Accumulation: even if already in the market, the signals would produce new orders which would increase the possition in the market
Concurrency: new orders would be generated without waiting for the execution of other orders

To avoid this the default behavior is:

To Not Accumulate
To Not allow Concurrency

Should any of these two behaviors be wished, this can be controlled via cerebro with:

cerebro.signal_accumulate(True) (or False to re-disable it)
cerebro.signal_concurrency(True) (or False to re-disable it)

The sample

The backtrader sources contain a sample to test the functionality.

Main signal to be used.

class SMACloseSignal(bt.Indicator):
    lines = ('signal',)
    params = (('period', 30),)

    def __init__(self):
        self.lines.signal = self.data - bt.indicators.SMA(period=self.p.period)

And the Exit Signal in case the option is specified.

class SMAExitSignal(bt.Indicator):
    lines = ('signal',)
    params = (('p1', 5), ('p2', 30),)

    def __init__(self):
        sma1 = bt.indicators.SMA(period=self.p.p1)
        sma2 = bt.indicators.SMA(period=self.p.p2)
        self.lines.signal = sma1 - sma2

First run: long and short

$ ./signals-strategy.py --plot --signal longshort

The output

To notice:

The Signal is plotted. This is normal given it is simply an indicator and the plotting rules for it apply
The strategy is really long and short. This can be seen because the cash level never goes back to be the value level
Side note: even for a dumb idea … (and without commission) the strategy hasn’t lost money …

Second run: long only

$ ./signals-strategy.py --plot --signal longonly

The output

To notice:

Here the cash level goes back to be the value level after each sell, which means the strategy is out of the market
Side note: Again no money has been lost …

Third run: short only

$ ./signals-strategy.py --plot --signal shortonly

The output

To notice:

The 1^st operation is a sell as expected and takes place later than the 1^st operationa in the 2 examples above. Not until the close is below the SMA and the simple substraction yields a minus
Here the cash level goes back to be the value level after each buy, which means the strategy is out of the market
Side note: Finally the system loses money

Fourth run: long + longexit

$ ./signals-strategy.py --plot --signal longonly --exitsignal longexit

The output

To notice:

Many of the trades are the same, but some are interrupted earlier because the fast movin average in the exit signal crosses the slow moving average to the downside
The system shows its longonly property with the cash becoming the value at the end of each trade
Side note: Again money … even with some modified trades

Usage

$ ./signals-strategy.py --help
usage: signals-strategy.py [-h] [--data DATA] [--fromdate FROMDATE]
                           [--todate TODATE] [--cash CASH]
                           [--smaperiod SMAPERIOD] [--exitperiod EXITPERIOD]
                           [--signal {longshort,longonly,shortonly}]
                           [--exitsignal {longexit,shortexit}]
                           [--plot [kwargs]]

Sample for Signal concepts

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --data DATA           Specific data to be read in (default:
                        ../../datas/2005-2006-day-001.txt)
  --fromdate FROMDATE   Starting date in YYYY-MM-DD format (default: None)
  --todate TODATE       Ending date in YYYY-MM-DD format (default: None)
  --cash CASH           Cash to start with (default: 50000)
  --smaperiod SMAPERIOD
                        Period for the moving average (default: 30)
  --exitperiod EXITPERIOD
                        Period for the exit control SMA (default: 5)
  --signal {longshort,longonly,shortonly}
                        Signal type to use for the main signal (default:
                        longshort)
  --exitsignal {longexit,shortexit}
                        Signal type to use for the exit signal (default: None)
  --plot [kwargs], -p [kwargs]
                        Plot the read data applying any kwargs passed For
                        example: --plot style="candle" (to plot candles)
                        (default: None)

The code

from __future__ import (absolute_import, division, print_function,
                        unicode_literals)

import argparse
import collections
import datetime

import backtrader as bt

MAINSIGNALS = collections.OrderedDict(
    (('longshort', bt.SIGNAL_LONGSHORT),
     ('longonly', bt.SIGNAL_LONG),
     ('shortonly', bt.SIGNAL_SHORT),)
)


EXITSIGNALS = {
    'longexit': bt.SIGNAL_LONGEXIT,
    'shortexit': bt.SIGNAL_LONGEXIT,
}


class SMACloseSignal(bt.Indicator):
    lines = ('signal',)
    params = (('period', 30),)

    def __init__(self):
        self.lines.signal = self.data - bt.indicators.SMA(period=self.p.period)


class SMAExitSignal(bt.Indicator):
    lines = ('signal',)
    params = (('p1', 5), ('p2', 30),)

    def __init__(self):
        sma1 = bt.indicators.SMA(period=self.p.p1)
        sma2 = bt.indicators.SMA(period=self.p.p2)
        self.lines.signal = sma1 - sma2


def runstrat(args=None):
    args = parse_args(args)

    cerebro = bt.Cerebro()
    cerebro.broker.set_cash(args.cash)

    dkwargs = dict()
    if args.fromdate is not None:
        fromdate = datetime.datetime.strptime(args.fromdate, '%Y-%m-%d')
        dkwargs['fromdate'] = fromdate

    if args.todate is not None:
        todate = datetime.datetime.strptime(args.todate, '%Y-%m-%d')
        dkwargs['todate'] = todate

    # if dataset is None, args.data has been given
    data = bt.feeds.BacktraderCSVData(dataname=args.data, **dkwargs)
    cerebro.adddata(data)

    cerebro.add_signal(MAINSIGNALS[args.signal],
                       SMACloseSignal, period=args.smaperiod)

    if args.exitsignal is not None:
        cerebro.add_signal(EXITSIGNALS[args.exitsignal],
                           SMAExitSignal,
                           p1=args.exitperiod,
                           p2=args.smaperiod)

    cerebro.run()
    if args.plot:
        pkwargs = dict(style='bar')
        if args.plot is not True:  # evals to True but is not True
            npkwargs = eval('dict(' + args.plot + ')')  # args were passed
            pkwargs.update(npkwargs)

        cerebro.plot(**pkwargs)


def parse_args(pargs=None):

    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
        formatter_class=argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter,
        description='Sample for Signal concepts')

    parser.add_argument('--data', required=False,
                        default='../../datas/2005-2006-day-001.txt',
                        help='Specific data to be read in')

    parser.add_argument('--fromdate', required=False, default=None,
                        help='Starting date in YYYY-MM-DD format')

    parser.add_argument('--todate', required=False, default=None,
                        help='Ending date in YYYY-MM-DD format')

    parser.add_argument('--cash', required=False, action='store',
                        type=float, default=50000,
                        help=('Cash to start with'))

    parser.add_argument('--smaperiod', required=False, action='store',
                        type=int, default=30,
                        help=('Period for the moving average'))

    parser.add_argument('--exitperiod', required=False, action='store',
                        type=int, default=5,
                        help=('Period for the exit control SMA'))

    parser.add_argument('--signal', required=False, action='store',
                        default=MAINSIGNALS.keys()[0], choices=MAINSIGNALS,
                        help=('Signal type to use for the main signal'))

    parser.add_argument('--exitsignal', required=False, action='store',
                        default=None, choices=EXITSIGNALS,
                        help=('Signal type to use for the exit signal'))

    # Plot options
    parser.add_argument('--plot', '-p', nargs='?', required=False,
                        metavar='kwargs', const=True,
                        help=('Plot the read data applying any kwargs passed\n'
                              '\n'
                              'For example:\n'
                              '\n'
                              '  --plot style="candle" (to plot candles)\n'))

    if pargs is not None:
        return parser.parse_args(pargs)

    return parser.parse_args()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    runstrat()