Moving Average Alert

[lou]

I am wanting to incorporate the use of moving averages in to my investing stratergy.

The main one that I am concerned with is the 200 moving average. While there are few services that offer alerts for a certain price point do any have an alert for when a price cross a moving average.

[Phaedrus]

It's difficult answer your question without knowing what market(s) you are interested in (NZ, Aus, USA etc) or what sort of alerts you want. (eg SMS, Text, Audible, Cellphone, email, visual etc) Are you wanting live (intraday) alerts or would those based on EOD data (end of day) be all you want? (Alert based on the Close, triggered after the market has closed for that day)
Your question is a little bit odd in that a 200 day MA is a very slow indicator and as such is hardly the sort of thing you would normally have triggering an alert.
This may well be all you want, of course, but a bit more info would make it easier to give a useful reply.

[lou]

I was looking at nz markets but would also like to know if this is possible for US or Australia.

Preferable alert would be email.

Live data would be good but not essential.

[Phaedrus]

Any good US broker can provide all that you are wanting and a lot more, Iou. The best even provide alerts based on trendline breaks. I don't know of any Aus brokers giving equivalent functionality and in NZ, you can get little more than simple price alerts at best.

If technically based alerts are important to you, one option is to do as I have done. Subscribe to a data service and download NZ and ASX EOD data daily, maintaining your own database to use with a charting program. I use MetaStock, but there plenty of others available. This would enable you to run alerts based on a whole raft of technical indicators.

It sounds to me as though you are fairly new to this. If so, I would advise you not to even think about going to the expense and complexity of running a live data feed. Maybe even running your own software is a step too far at this stage. Spend a bit of time looking at all the charts and indicators that are available free online and you may find that is all you really need - initially at least.

[trackers]

Heya P... Speaking of MS alerts. Do you just configure one expert advisor to have all the alerts you may want then attach that to all the charts you're interested in?

Do you need to have the charts open for it to work, or does it work in the background?

[Phaedrus]

You can organise things pretty much as you like. You can have any alert or number of alerts incorporated as part of any existing "Expert Advisor". If you preferred you could set up a dedicated "Alerts" Expert Advisor which did nothing but draw your attention to any fulfilled alert conditions. These are triggered as you page through your charts - usually you would be doing this on a watchlist of stocks, rather than an entire market. You can incorporate any Advisor into your default template so it is automatically applied to any new chart. Alerts can be onscreen text, video clips, sounds etc. You can create your own audio files if you want specific detailed commentary on any alert. You can enter as many alerts as you like and each one has a "select" box so it is easy to only activate those that are of interest to you at that time.
If you want to scan an entire market for alerts, that is best done by using the MS "Explorer" function. This will pull up a list of any stocks that meet the criteria you are looking for.

[trackers]

You can organise things pretty much as you like. You can have any alert or number of alerts incorporated as part of any existing "Expert Advisor". If you preferred you could set up a dedicated "Alerts" Expert Advisor which did nothing but draw your attention to any fulfilled alert conditions. These are triggered as you page through your charts - usually you would be doing this on a watchlist of stocks, rather than an entire market. You can incorporate any Advisor into your default template so it is automatically applied to any new chart. Alerts can be onscreen text, video clips, sounds etc. You can create your own audio files if you want specific detailed commentary on any alert. You can enter as many alerts as you like and each one has a "select" box so it is easy to only activate those that are of interest to you at that time.
If you want to scan an entire market for alerts, that is best done by using the MS "Explorer" function. This will pull up a list of any stocks that meet the criteria you are looking for.

Thanks, you're a legend - So you actually need to open the chart for the alert to be triggered? Will an alert be triggered if they're all open in the background when a new day's worth of data is loaded?

Think I might have to find a 'who let the dogs out' Wav file :)

[Phaedrus]

So you actually need to open the chart for the alert to be triggered?
Yes. No chart = nowhere for the alert to display.

Will an alert be triggered if they're all open in the background when a new day's worth of data is loaded?
No. You would need to click "Refresh data" to update any opened chart and then any new alerts would be triggered and displayed as each chart was refreshed or opened. It would be no help to hear an alert but not know which stock triggered it!

The usual approach is to download the new EOD data, then flick through your current watchlist of charts to see what's happened - at which time any new alerts will trigger and appear/sound etc. There is a lot of fun to be had with .wav files. I have got a whole library of them - Gunshots, screams, manic laughter, farts, explosions, phrases from "The Simpsons" characters, toilets flushing, anguished cries, a sonorous voice (mine) saying "You should not be holding this share at this time". sobbing, assorted bugle calls (reveille, retreat, charge, etc) If you want intelligent, relevant technical comment, you will need to use the "Commentary" function.

For all that, it sounds to me as though your needs would be best met via the "Explorer". Quickly scan an entire market and get a printed list of stocks that meet your criteria. These can then be individually inspected, put into a watchlist or whatever you want.

[trackers]

Lol, thats a pretty funny setup...

I think you're right I'll stick to The Explorer, but I've attached an expert advisor setup with a few email alerts to my default template so we'll see how that goes - I imagine it would work very nicely with live data, especially with emails on smartphones etc. Thanks again