Skip to content

Arrows for the BuySell Observer

backtrader was conceived to try to deliver ease of use. Creation of indicators and other usual suspects should be easy.

And of course, customizing existing items should also be part of the deal.

A topic in the community, BuySell Arrows, which originates from the migration from issues is a good example.

The current behavior can be seen by running the sample:

./buysellarrows.py --plot style="'ohlc'"

With following output

image

The sample when using does the following:

  • Define a subclass of the BuySell observer

  • Override the plotlines definition and simply change the markers which indicate the buy and sell operations

  • Monkey patches the existing observer with the custom one

In code terms.

class MyBuySell(bt.observers.BuySell):
    plotlines = dict(
        buy=dict(marker='$\u21E7$', markersize=12.0),
        sell=dict(marker='$\u21E9$', markersize=12.0)
    )

and:

    # Patch observer if needed
    if args.myobserver:
        bt.observers.BuySell = MyBuySell

Note

Monkey patching is not strictly necesary. One can also go the standard way:

cerebro = bt.Cerebro(stdstats=False)  # remove the standard observers

...
cerebro.addobserver(MyObserver, barplot=True)

...

And the custom observer would also be used, but the other regularly instantiated observers would be missing. Hence the monkey patching in the sample to simply modify the observer and keep the look.

Running it again with the reight parameter:

$ ./buysellarrows.py --plot style="'ohlc'" --myobserver

Which then outputs.

image

Because matplotlib allows the use of Unicode characters, the default look of the observer can be changed to anything and nos just arrows. Be my guest. For example from Wikipedia:

Sample Usage

$ ./buysellarrows.py --help
usage: buysellarrows.py [-h] [--data DATA | --yahoo TICKER]
                        [--fromdate FROMDATE] [--todate TODATE]
                        [--cerebro kwargs] [--broker kwargs] [--sizer kwargs]
                        [--strat kwargs] [--plot [kwargs]] [--myobserver]

buysell arrows ...

optional arguments:
  -h, --help           show this help message and exit
  --data DATA          Data to read in (default:
                       ../../datas/2005-2006-day-001.txt)
  --yahoo TICKER       Yahoo ticker to download (default: )
  --fromdate FROMDATE  Date[time] in YYYY-MM-DD[THH:MM:SS] format (default: )
  --todate TODATE      Date[time] in YYYY-MM-DD[THH:MM:SS] format (default: )
  --cerebro kwargs     kwargs in key=value format (default: )
  --broker kwargs      kwargs in key=value format (default: )
  --sizer kwargs       kwargs in key=value format (default: )
  --strat kwargs       kwargs in key=value format (default: )
  --plot [kwargs]      kwargs in key=value format (default: )
  --myobserver         Patch in Custom BuySell observer (default: False)

Sample Code

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

import argparse
import datetime

import backtrader as bt


class MyBuySell(bt.observers.BuySell):
    plotlines = dict(
        buy=dict(marker='$\u21E7$', markersize=12.0),
        sell=dict(marker='$\u21E9$', markersize=12.0)
    )


class MACrossOver(bt.SignalStrategy):
    params = (('ma', bt.ind.MovAv.SMA), ('p1', 10), ('p2', 30),)

    def __init__(self):
        ma1, ma2 = self.p.ma(period=self.p.p1), self.p.ma(period=self.p.p2)
        self.signal_add(bt.SIGNAL_LONGSHORT, bt.ind.CrossOver(ma1, ma2))


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

    cerebro = bt.Cerebro()

    # Data feed kwargs
    kwargs = dict(dataname=args.yahoo or args.data)

    # Parse from/to-date
    dtfmt, tmfmt = '%Y-%m-%d', 'T%H:%M:%S'
    for a, d in ((getattr(args, x), x) for x in ['fromdate', 'todate']):
        if a:
            strpfmt = dtfmt + tmfmt * ('T' in a)
            kwargs[d] = datetime.datetime.strptime(a, strpfmt)

    # Data feed kwargs
    if args.yahoo:
        data0 = bt.feeds.YahooFinanceData(**kwargs)
    else:
        data0 = bt.feeds.BacktraderCSVData(**kwargs)
    cerebro.adddata(data0)

    # Broker
    kwargs = eval('dict(' + args.broker + ')')
    cerebro.broker = bt.brokers.BackBroker(**kwargs)

    # Sizer
    kwargs = eval('dict(' + args.sizer + ')')
    cerebro.addsizer(bt.sizers.FixedSize, **kwargs)

    # Strategy
    kwargs = eval('dict(' + args.strat + ')')
    cerebro.addstrategy(MACrossOver, **kwargs)

    # better net liquidation value view
    cerebro.addobserver(bt.observers.Value)

    # Patch observer if needed
    if args.myobserver:
        bt.observers.BuySell = MyBuySell

    # Execute
    cerebro.run(**(eval('dict(' + args.cerebro + ')')))

    if args.plot:  # Plot if requested to
        cerebro.plot(**(eval('dict(' + args.plot + ')')))


def parse_args(pargs=None):

    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
        formatter_class=argparse.ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter,
        description='buysell arrows ...')

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

    pgroup.add_argument('--yahoo', required=False, default='',
                        metavar='TICKER', help='Yahoo ticker to download')

    parser.add_argument('--fromdate', required=False, default='',
                        help='Date[time] in YYYY-MM-DD[THH:MM:SS] format')

    parser.add_argument('--todate', required=False, default='',
                        help='Date[time] in YYYY-MM-DD[THH:MM:SS] format')

    parser.add_argument('--cerebro', required=False, default='',
                        metavar='kwargs', help='kwargs in key=value format')

    parser.add_argument('--broker', required=False, default='',
                        metavar='kwargs', help='kwargs in key=value format')

    parser.add_argument('--sizer', required=False, default='',
                        metavar='kwargs', help='kwargs in key=value format')

    parser.add_argument('--strat', required=False, default='',
                        metavar='kwargs', help='kwargs in key=value format')

    parser.add_argument('--plot', required=False, default='',
                        nargs='?', const='{}',
                        metavar='kwargs', help='kwargs in key=value format')

    parser.add_argument('--myobserver', required=False, action='store_true',
                        help='Patch in Custom BuySell observer')

    return parser.parse_args(pargs)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    runstrat()