Analyzing Higher Timeframes on Intraday Bars in Pine Script

g'day Traders welcome back to another
pine script lesson today's lesson I'm
going to be answering a question from a
student in the Mastery course now the
student Connor wants to know how to get
the bar index of an intraday bar based
on a condition that's met on a higher
time frame now I don't know how many of
you guys out there will need to do this
sort of thing in your own scripts it's
the first time I've ever had this
challenge in pinescript but I think the
techniques I used to get this to work
are quite interesting so I think you
guys will appreciate my thought process
and the techniques I used to analyze
that higher time frame on intraday pass
so in Connor script he's pulling the
previous days high and he wants to get
the corresponding bar index for when the
lower time frame bar creates this high
and that's exactly what this script here
is doing alright so here I am with a
pretty much blank script I've just
written out the steps we need to take in
order to achieve our goal today so the
first thing we need to do is get the
higher time frame highs value so if I
drop out to the daily chart that is
going to be this Bar's High here this
green bar that's the first step
obviously the Second Step however is a
little more complicated now we need to
to calculate how many bars we need to
look back on our intraday time frame to
find which bar generated this high or
created this high so to do that we
actually need to add up how many bars
have printed today and how many bars
printed yesterday and then that's our
Loop count so we need to loop from this
bar here all the way to this bar here
between these two time frames and now
that looks like the world's worst smiley
face hopefully that makes sense so we
need to add up how many bars printed
today how many bars printed yesterday we
need to start our loop our for loop from
this bar here Loop over all of these
bars on our chart to find which one
created yesterday's high and now this is
an even worse smiley face
uh anyway this is the mind of
programmers we get a little crazy so we
calculate how many bars we need to look
back and then we loop from the start of
yesterday's session or the higher time
frame session if a higher time frame
session is a weekly chart then We're
looping from the start of last week to
today but in this case we're going to
stick with the daily chart for now and
what we need to do is loop from this bar
to this bar find that highest high once
we've found that highest high so once
the bar we are looping over equals
yesterday's high we save the loop
counter and exit our Loop and then this
Loop count is going to be how many bars
printed since that intraday bar created
yesterday's high so in this case that's
14 bars so if we subtract 14 from this
Bar's current bar index that will give
us the bar index of this bar so
hopefully that makes sense but we'll
start writing some code now and I'll
show you how we do this in practice
because I think it's quite interesting
like I said many of you might not ever
need to do this in your scripts but
there will be parts of the techniques I
use here that will be useful to you in
other use cases so I think you'll still
find this video interesting so the first
thing we're doing here is getting a user
input we're just getting the higher time
frame by default it's the one day time
frame the next thing we need to do is
get our higher time frame high now in
the past I would usually do something
like this
is confirmed question mark zero
otherwise one
and I would use this approach for
getting our high time frame high and
this would eliminate repainting however
this works on most markets but in some
markets it doesn't work I'll show you
what I mean in a second you would have
seen in a lot of my previous videos this
is the method I used to use but I use a
different method now and I'll explain
why so first of all let's plot this onto
our chart
now if I save my code we should be
getting yesterday's High drawing there
we go it's not repainting it's not doing
anything funny however if I go to a
stock market like apple you can see this
here
um I'm not entirely sure why it does
this but on the final bar of yesterday's
or last night for me this is a US market
and I'm in Australia obviously if you
can't tell by my accent on the very
final bar of yesterday's trading session
in the US for whatever reason this bar
began a new day and now we're drawing
this bar is high
and that's incorrect this should be
yesterday's high and then around
midnight tonight a new bar should open
and that becomes the new day anyway to
be completely honest I'm not sure why
this happens but I do know how to fix it
and the way we fix it according to the
paint script documentation is this code
here so if I copy this code and paste it
above
um
I'll just shorten this up a bit so and I
don't know why they say index let's just
call it Market we're getting two integer
values Market higher time frame a market
current time frame that's what CTF
stands for current time frame so for
Market higher time frame we're checking
is the current bar a real-time bar is it
currently active if so we want to
reference yesterday's bar to eliminate
repainting otherwise if it's not a
real-time bar that means it's a
historical bar and we can reference the
current bars index and then we do the
same thing for Market current time frame
except if the bar is real time we're
referencing the current bar otherwise
we're referencing the previous bar and
now I can replace this
ternary operator here with Market higher
time frame so the security function
expression is going to run on the daily
chart and so this expression will be
passed into the daily charts high value
and if the current bar the current daily
bar is real time or active then we'll be
referencing yesterday's market data
instead of today's market data and that
will stop the script from repainting if
I go back to euro dollar here and I get
rid of this and I save my code
this will now repaint and what that
means is throughout price action today
if we come up here this red line will
move with price action as we generate
new highs there are times when you will
want that to happen but in this
particular case we don't want repainting
we just want to draw yesterday's high
over today's price action and then when
a new day starts tomorrow we want to
draw today's high over tomorrow's price
action so to eliminate repainting
properly we're going to use these two
values like so and now if I go back to
Apple and I save my code this will no
longer be drawing like this we'll be
drawing yesterday's high properly there
we go so anyway that's how we get
the higher time frames High
without repainting
now that we have that value the next
thing we need to do is count how many
bars I'll go to euro dollar again for
this we need to count how many bars have
printed today and how many bars printed
yesterday now I need to move these blue
lines because I forgot that my time zone
is obviously out of whack with the
exchange time zone so technically at 8
am a new day starts for Forex for where
I live so this is how it should look so
we ignore the dates down here
technically a new day started at
midnight here but as far as the Forex
markets are concerned we're basing our
new days off the exchange time zone so
what I need to do now is count how many
bars I've printed today and how many
bars printed yesterday add them up that
gives us our look back period but that's
easier said than done the way I do it in
this particular example is borrowed from
my aval by time indicator and the way I
go about this is like so I'm just going
to copy this block of code over and
break it down for you guys so the first
thing we do is detect a new session on
our higher time frame so when a new
higher time frame session begin new
session will be true and the way we do
that is we detect a change in the
timestamp of the open of this higher
time frame period so in this case when a
new daily bar begins new session will be
set to true then we have two counters
here we have a counter for how many bars
printed this session and how many bars
printed in the last session of our
higher time frame so in this case this
will be how many bars printed yesterday
this is how many printed today so if we
are not starting a new session then we
add one to our bars this session counter
and so every time a new bar begins we
add one to our counter for today however
if new session is true then this will
not get executed but this code will and
what this does here is it saves how many
bars printed across yesterday and then
it resets our bar count for this session
and so now we have two values how many
bars I've printed today since the new
day began or a new higher time frame
period began and how many bars printed
during yesterday's higher time frame
session in this case yesterday if I
change this to weekly then now we're
looking at this week how many bars
printed this week and adding up how many
bars printed last week to get our look
back period so hopefully that makes
sense and you're following along here so
once we have this information the next
thing to do is calculate how many bars
we need to look back so this is our look
back period bars total across our higher
time frames and that's going to be how
many bars printed this session plus how
many bars printed yesterday or in the
last higher time frame session now we
can Loop through all of the intraday
bars that are relevant to this look back
period and check if the intraday
condition is met in this case if the uh
let me change this back to daily so
we're going to loop from this bar to
this bar and detect which of these bars
equals our higher time frame High and
the reason we need to start looping from
here to the current bar instead of from
the current bar backwards is because if
there are multiple bars here that equal
the highest high of yesterday then this
bar will be incorrectly detected as the
bar that generated the high we want the
first bar that touched that high to be
identified as the intraday bar that
created yesterday's high so we start
with the bar counter this is how many
bars have printed since this high was
created and now we can Loop so if I
paste this code in we're creating a for
Loop and I our Loop index is going to be
set to the total bar count for today and
yesterday so this bar here
I'm going to loop from that bar to zero
so in this case we'll be looping from 30
bars ago to zero
and in each iteration of this loop we're
going to check if that bar is high is
equal to the previous day's high if this
condition is met then we found our
candle or bar that created yesterday's
high so we assign our bar count since
high to the loop index and we break out
of our Loop so we stop looping because
we don't need to finish our Loop anymore
we've already found the bar that we're
looking for so now that we have that
information we have everything we need
to calculate what the bar index is of
this bar here
so we copy the server
what we're doing here is creating a new
variable called higher time frame bar
index technically this should be a
intraday bar index of our higher time
frame high and it's going to be set to
the current bar index so this bar here
will have a bar index that equals the
total number of bars loaded onto our
chart and then if we subtract this
number this Loop index from that bar
index so in this particular case that'll
be 15 bars if we subtract 15 from the
current bars index that will give us
this Bar's index and so now if I draw
all of this information onto my chart so
here we have one plot and two plot cars
or plot charts plot characters we're
plotting the previous days high or
previous higher time frame bars High
we're plotting the current bars index
and we're plotting the current bar size
now I'll show you why we're plotting the
current bar size in a moment now notice
that we're using the plot character
function here instead of a plot the
reason we're doing that as you would
have seen if you watched my previous
lesson on debugging scripts these two
values here are p really for debugging
so we don't need to actually have them
drawing onto the chart like this red
line is
but if we use a plot to draw these
values depending on your chart settings
if you have this turned off scale price
chart only then your chart scaling is
going to get Warped and your child looks
something like this it'll squish up
price action and because we'll be
plotting a bar index that'll be in the
thousands so our chart here will scale
all the way until we see thousands on
the chart and we are also plotting the
bar size which will be in Pips so
that'll be a tiny number and so we'll
just end up with this really squished up
chart So to avoid that we can use the
plot character function instead so now
if I save my code we will be getting
those values drawing up here so the
green number is the bar size the blue
number is the bar index that I'm
hovering over and the red number is
yesterday's high so the final thing we
need to do is draw this information onto
the chart with the debug label so that
we can verify that we're getting the
correct information so I'm going to
paste this code in here now don't worry
this is scary at first glance if you're
new to working with labels and text in
multiple lines but I'll break it down
it's not that complicated or we're doing
here is we're checking if the current
bar is the last bar on our chart if that
is the case then this code gets executed
and what we're doing is we're
calculating the bar size of the bar that
generated the intraday high so that'll
be this bar here we're subtracting this
Bar's low from its high and that gives
us the bar size of that bar so this is
just an example of how we can use the
information we've collected up here to
analyze the bar that created yesterday's
high now what you do with that
information is obviously up to you that
I didn't actually ask the student Connor
what he wants to do with this
information but I'm sure there's plenty
of good reasons why you might want to
analyze the bar that generated
yesterday's high depending on your
trading system or the way you analyze
charts this could be important
information so anyway the next thing we
do is generate a label we just create a
new label on the current buyer index I'm
placing the label 500 points or 50 Pips
above the current bars High just so that
it draws appear somewhere away from
Price action I don't want a big label
drawing over the top of price and then
we're generating a giant string so the
string is going to include our Market
type it's going to include the intra bar
count so how many bars I've drawn today
or plotted today and a bunch of other
information and then we're just giving
it a background color of black and a
text color of white so now if I saved my
code we'll be getting a label drawing
with all this information so it's
telling us our Market type it's telling
us how many bars printed today so six
bars have drawn since this day began or
this daily time frame session began on
euro dollar based on my exchange time
zone so in this case we're on oanda's
price feed so at 8 AM my time a new day
began on eurodollar and we've had six
bars or six hours plot since then we're
also getting how many bars printed
yesterday so we're on the hourly time
frame here we're on a Forex market and
Forex markets are open 24 hours so we
should have 24 bars so the new day began
here if we count all the way back to the
previous new days beginning we have 24
bars and so we're adding these two
numbers together to get our look back
here period so six bars today plus 24
bars yesterday gives us 30 bars and
that's our blue line here so I can
verify that by counting back to the Blue
Line you can see we have 30 bars there
and then the last couple of uh
parameters here drawing on our label is
how many bars have printed since the
high was created yesterday so if I count
back to that bar there 15 and 15. so so
far so good then finally we get the bar
index which is what the student wanted
to get in his script he wanted the bar
index on this time frame the alley time
frame of the bar that created
yesterday's high in this case that's
25931 if we look at this blue number up
here when I hover over that bar you can
see that it is in fact 25
931 and then finally we're calculating
the bar size of the bar that created
yesterday's high if I zoom in here it
should be 22.3 Pips so if I measure from
the high down to the low close enough
22.4 Pips so that is how we go about
well this is one way we can go about
getting the intraday bar index of a high
time frame condition now there are many
ways we could go about doing this it's
probably simpler ways we could we could
go about doing this we could just have a
set look back period we could loop back
like 100 bars or so and just check which
bar matches the higher time frame High
here but I know it's super rare but what
if we had several bars over the past
several days that touched that high
value exactly how do we know which one
generated yesterday's high we don't know
unless we loop back the correct number
of bars so that's why I went to the
trouble of counting that look back
period properly and the cool thing about
this method is that it's robust so if we
go to the stock market now we're still
on the one hour time frame the
difference here is that the stock market
is not open 24 hours a day and so if we
want to get the bar index of this bar
here the generated yesterday's high we
we need to loop back 13 bars in this
case instead of whatever it was on euro
dollar so now it says here by since high
is nine so if I count back nine bars
from the current bar we get nine and the
bar index up there
is two one three four seven two one
three four seven and now if I jump over
to something like crypto
this label should also be correct still
so this is the bar that generated
yesterday's high
if I count back it should be 20 bars ago
20 bars ago and the bar index is 27 725
27 725. so there you have it we have a
script that is correctly identifying
which bar met our high time frame
condition now this condition could be
anything it doesn't need to be the
highest high it could be an indicator
value like an RSI for example it could
be the bar that touched an EMA it could
be the first bar that set the higher
time frame overbought the applications
of this check here you could replace
this code here with almost anything
uh you you get whatever higher time
frame value you want to analyze and then
in this for Loop you check which bar
created that condition and then you can
correctly identify and isolate that bar
and analyze it however you need to so
that'll do it for today's lesson I know
it was a bit of a esoteric lesson this
is the first time out of hundreds
hundreds of questions I get that
anyone's ever wanted to do this but I
thought it was an interesting challenge
it took me a few hours to figure out the
solution and I think there's a lot of
interesting techniques involved in this
script in this solution that can be
applied to all kinds of use cases in
pinescript so I'll wrap this lesson up
here I hope you found it interesting as
always the source code will be below
don't forget to subscribe if you've got
value out of this video I'll be back
probably next week maybe the week after
a bit busy next week with some stuff but
I will try to get a video out if I can't
it'll be next week and in the meantime
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great weekend and good luck with your
Trading