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Extending a data feed

Issues in GitHub are actually pushing into finishing documentation parts or helping me to understand if backtrader has the ease of use and flexibility I envisioned from the first moments and the decisions made along the way.

In this case is Issue #9.

The question finally seems to boil down to:

  • Can the end user easily extend the existing mechanisms to add extra information in the form of lines that gets passed along other existing price information spots like open, high, etc?

As far as I understand the question the answer is: Yes

The poster seems to have these requirements (from Issue #6):

  • A data source which is being parsed into CSV format

  • Using GenericCSVData to load the information

    This generic csv support was developed in response to this Issue #6

  • An extra field which apparently contains P/E information which needs to be passed along the parsed CSV Data

Let’s build on the CSV Data Feed Development and A Generic CSV Data Feed example posts.

Steps:

  • Assume the P/E information is being set in the CSV data which is parsed

  • Use GenericCSVData as the base class

  • Extend the existng lines (open/high/low/close/volumen/openinterest) with pe

  • Add a parameter to let the caller determine the column position of the P/E information

The result:

from backtrader.feeds import GenericCSVData

class GenericCSV_PE(GenericCSVData):

    # Add a 'pe' line to the inherited ones from the base class
    lines = ('pe',)

    # openinterest in GenericCSVData has index 7 ... add 1
    # add the parameter to the parameters inherited from the base class
    params = (('pe', 8),)

And the job is done …

Later and when using this data feed inside a strategy:

import backtrader as bt

....

class MyStrategy(bt.Strategy):

    ...

    def next(self):

        if self.data.close > 2000 and self.data.pe < 12:
            # TORA TORA TORA --- Get off this market
            self.sell(stake=1000000, price=0.01, exectype=Order.Limit)
    ...

Plotting that extra P/E line

There is obviously no automated plot support for that extra line in the data feed.

The best alternative would be to do a SimpleMovingAverage on that line and plot it in a separate axis:

import backtrader as bt
import backtrader.indicators as btind

....

class MyStrategy(bt.Strategy):

    def __init__(self):

        # The indicator autoregisters and will plot even if no obvious
        # reference is kept to it in the class
        btind.SMA(self.data.pe, period=1, subplot=False)

    ...

    def next(self):

        if self.data.close > 2000 and self.data.pe < 12:
            # TORA TORA TORA --- Get off this market
            self.sell(stake=1000000, price=0.01, exectype=Order.Limit)
    ...