Renko bars for NinjaTrader 8 built from real traded prices, so your Strategy Analyzer fills at prices that actually existed.
Standard Renko is great for reading trend, but it is a poor base for backtesting. Its bricks are drawn at theoretical grid prices, not at the prices that traded. When you backtest a Renko strategy, NinjaTrader fills your orders against those synthetic prices, and the result is the "too good to be true" equity curve that falls apart the moment the strategy goes live.
CTT True Renko keeps the clean Renko structure you trade from, and makes every brick's open, high, low and close a real traded tick.
Why standard Renko backtests lie
- Synthetic opens. Each brick opens at a grid level. After a reversal that level can be two bricks away from where price really was.
- Theoretical closes. A brick closes exactly on the level, not at the tick that crossed it.
- Phantom bricks. A fast move or gap creates several bricks with the same timestamp, at prices that never traded.
- Wrong fills. The Strategy Analyzer fills market orders at the next bar's open and limit/stop orders against the bar's high and low. On standard Renko those prices are invented, so the backtest fills where you could never have filled live.
What CTT True Renko does differently
| Standard Renko | CTT True Renko | |
|---|---|---|
| Brick open | Grid level | The real tick that completed the previous brick |
| Brick close | Grid level | The real tick that completed the brick |
| High / low | Body only | True traded extremes, shown as real wicks |
| Gaps and fast moves | Several phantom bricks | One brick at the real gap price |
| Backtest fills | At prices that never traded | At the same prices available in realtime |
Key features
- Real OHLC on every brick. The open is the price at which a strategy acting on bar close can first trade, the same price in the Analyzer and live.
- Grid-anchored bricks. Brick formation is decided on a fixed price grid, so bricks don't shift depending on where your loaded data starts.
- Consistent history. With "Break at EOD" on, bricks are identical whatever "Days to load" you choose, so optimizations are reproducible.
- Same code in history and realtime. Bricks are built from tick data the same way historically and live.
- Clear direction. Up bricks always close above their open and down bricks below, so your strategy logic stays simple.
- Classic or one-brick reversal. Set the brick size in ticks and the reversal in bricks: 2 for classic Renko, 1 for faster reversals.
Who it's for
- Traders who build or optimize Renko strategies in the NinjaTrader 8 Strategy Analyzer.
- Anyone whose Renko backtests look far better than their live or sim results.
- Futures traders on mini and micro contracts (MES, MNQ, MYM, M2K, ES, NQ and more).
Settings
- Brick size (ticks): default 10.
- Reversal (bricks): default 2 (classic). Use 1 for one-brick reversals.
- Break at EOD (data series option): resets the brick grid at each session start for fully repeatable history.
Good to know
- Requires historical tick data from your data provider, since bricks are built tick by tick.
- A brick that forms across a gap, for example at the session reopen, can be tall. That is the real gap, shown honestly as one brick instead of several fake ones.
- CTT True Renko removes the invented prices from Renko backtests. No backtest can model slippage, queue position or partial fills exactly, so always confirm a strategy on sim before going live.
What you get
- CTT True Renko bar type for NinjaTrader 8 (import via Tools → Import → NinjaScript Add-On).
- License for 2 machines.
- Free updates.