Hey Everyone! 👋
We hope you’re enjoying Black Friday week, and have helped yourself to some of the great discounts we are offering over the next few days. We only do this once a year, so it really is the best time to get a plan!
Now, let’s jump into today’s topic: Alerts.
While alerts have a ton of potential applications when it comes to trading, they are often underutilized because it can take some time and ingenuity to build a system where they can work well. Let’s get started:
1. They can help build good habits 💪
Stop us if this sounds familiar: you hear an awesome investment story, and then immediately go out on the market and purchase the asset, with no plan in place.
While this can work, it’s not a great strategy for long term success, because in reality it can be extremely hard to sit in that position without a plan and trade it efficiently. You may choose to exit the position based on nothing more than momentary greed or fear, and moves like that can prevent consistency and long term profitability.
Alerts are great because they can take out the guesswork of entering and exiting a position. Simply set alerts for the prices you would like, then place a trade if, and only if, the conditions are met. Then, let the market do its thing, and let the probabilities work in your favor.
Alerts can turn the experience of trading from a constant search for ideas - and always feeling behind - into a relaxing job of waiting for your own pre-approved conditions to trigger before taking action. In short, alerts can make you much more well prepared for the market’s ups and downs.
2. They increase freedom and reduce anxiety 🧘
There is a well known maxim in trading and in life that states that negative emotions are felt twice as strongly as positive emotions. This factoid has lots of applications, but it can be especially useful to understand as a trader.
Consider the following investors:
A dentist who checks quarterly reports from his brokerage
A position trader who checks his positions once a month
A swing trader who checks his positions once a week
A Day trader who checks his positions once a day, if not more
Given the natural volatility that markets experience, which market participant is least likely to be mad or upset? The dentist. Why? Because he is receiving less data points from the market. Even world class day traders are exposed to tens or hundreds of negative situations in their positions on a day to day basis as a result of volatility, which they cannot control. This level of negative stimulation can reduce mental health and trading effectiveness.
Alerts allow well prepared traders with some edge to step back from the markets and allow the trades to come to them.
3. Our alerts don’t let anything fall through the cracks ✅
While the previous two points are benefits when it comes to price alerts, our alerts also step the game up considerably when it comes to user utility. Once you have setups that you like to trade, you can set alerts on trendlines, technical indicators, customizable scripts, and so much more, so you can ensure that your favorite setups aren’t being missed.
This can be as simple as a long term investor setting RSI alerts on Dow 30 stocks, in order to buy dips in strong names, to as complex as an intraday futures spread scalper setting alerts for pricing inefficiencies within his top 40 contracts.
Our customizable alerts can really allow well organized traders to capture every opportunity as they see fit.
Thanks for reading, and stay well!
TradingView Team