The Technical Alert Workbench allows StockCharts members to create, modify, and schedule custom technical alerts that meet whatever technical criteria are desired. Once a custom alert is scheduled in our system, it will periodically run against all the ticker symbols in our database and if a user-determined number of symbols match the alert's criteria, the user will receive a notification via either email, SMS text message, or an alert box on the SharpCharts Workbench page.
Two different types of technical alerts can be created using the Technical Alert Workbench:
The Price Alert Builder will assist you in quickly creating alerts for basic price crossovers. If you want to be notified when a single symbol crosses above or below a specific price, then this is the alert type for you.
Our Advanced Alert Builder allows you to create more complex custom alerts. This builder is similar to the Advanced Scan Workbench, allowing you to select and insert multiple technical criteria for your alert easily.
To access the Technical Alert Workbench, click on “Your Dashboard” at the top of any page and log in to your account. From Your Dashboard, you can click the “Technical Alert Workbench” link in the Member Tools section of the page, or click the “New” button in the Your Alerts section.
Once on the workbench, the “Alert Type” tabs at the top left will allow you to choose which type of alert you want to create. To create a Price Alert, select “Price” as the alert type; for an Advanced Alert, choose “Advanced” instead.
Alert Type Tabs
Alert Management
Notification Controls (in Alert Criteria Panel)
Alert Criteria Box (in Alert Criteria Panel)
The use of each of these sections is described below.
Note: This screenshot shows the Advanced Alert Builder, which is used for creating complex alerts. The much simpler Price Alert Builder will be covered .
For Advanced Alerts, writing alert criteria is just like writing scan criteria. You can type in your criteria in the Alert Criteria Box by hand or, alternatively, insert commonly-used criteria from the Alert Components area.
The Alert Criteria Box and Alert Components areas are identical to the and areas in the Advanced Scan Workbench. Please see those topics for more information.
Just like building scans, it's always a good idea to check the syntax one last time before scheduling your alert in order to make sure that there are no errors in your alert criteria. To do this, just click the “Check Syntax” button below the Alert Criteria Box. If there is a syntax error, text will appear below the box that identifies the problem.
If you see the message below, it means you are ready to schedule your alert.
One of the key differences between scans and alerts is that alerts, unlike scans, are run automatically at a scheduled time and notify you based on the number of securities that meet your criteria at that time.
The notification controls in the Alert Criteria Panel allow you to specify when the alert is run, what number of results will trigger the alert, how you should be contacted when the alert triggers and what to do with the alert once it has been triggered. The following sections will cover each of these topics.
You can choose from four different schedules for your alert:
Continuously All Day. Alert runs continuously throughout the day. This is the default option.
At Market Open. Alert runs immediately after the first price update of the day.
Hourly (10 AM to 4 PM). Alert runs the first time alerts are processed during each hour, from 10 AM - 4 PM Eastern. Note that, depending on the timing of the alert scans, this could be anywhere from the top of the hour to approximately 5 minutes after the hour.
A final run occurs at approximately 7-8 PM Eastern time. See our documentation for more details.
Alerts are triggered based on the number of securities that meet your alert criteria. Very often, you are looking for a single event, such as the price of a particular stock going above or below some value. In this case, you want to be alerted if the result set is greater than 0, which is the default.
For other scans, you may wish to know if some level has been passed. For example, you could build your own by adding a known number of symbols to a ChartList and scanning to see how many symbols have collectively crossed above or below a specific threshold.
The Notification Controls allow you to tailor the alert by specifying the number of results and the comparison method.
When your alert is triggered, you can be notified by email, SMS text message, or a notification banner in the SharpCharts Workbench.
We will use the email address we have on file for your account. You can change your email address by visiting the page.
Ensure StockCharts.com is listed as a trusted site in your email program so that messages aren't caught in junk filters. You may want to check your internet service provider's or email program's documentation to set up junk filters.
Note: If you select the email option, the notification email will show only the first 100 symbols that match your alert criteria.
SMS text messages will use the phone number on file for your account. When you set up an SMS alert, an “Update Mobile Number” link will appear in the Alert Criteria Panel. Click this link to change your phone number.
If you live in the US or Canada, you can specify your area code and phone number. If you live outside the US or Canada, you must also prepend the number with a “+” sign, the country code, and any regional codes:
+353 1 XXX-XXXX - Dublin, Ireland
+44 20 XXXX-XXXX - London, England
+81 6 XXXX-XXXX - Osaka, Japan
If the alert is set to “Workbench,” the notification will appear at the top of the SharpCharts Workbench page as a banner. The alert will display for one day or until the alert is hidden via the “Hide” button on the banner. Note that on the Workbench, only two banners appear at a time. If you have more than two alerts, close one (click on the X), and another alert will display.
In the Message field, you can type in a message that will be displayed whenever the alert is triggered. This message can be up to 2,048 characters long.
After an alert has been triggered, you have the following options for future scheduled runs of the alert:
Pause. The alert will not be processed again until the alert state has been set to run again. Use the Alert Center page to toggle the run state between running and paused.
Delete. The alert is automatically deleted.
Continue. The alert will continue to run according to the user-specified schedule.
Once you've built your alert and chosen your notification settings, click the green “Save Alert” button and select a name for your alert.
Learn More.
When your advanced alert is triggered, the notification you receive (whether via email, SMS, or workbench banner) will include a link to a webpage showing the symbols that were returned by your advanced alert (up to a maximum of 2000 symbols). The link will remain valid for 30 days.
The alert results page is similar to the scan results page, and you can take many of the same actions from there. Symbols are listed in a table along with basic information including price, volume, and SCTR score. The table can be sorted and searched. Use the menu in the leftmost column to launch different charts for each symbol.
Note: As with scans, 2000 is the maximum number of symbols shown in the results. If your alert returns 2000 or more results, only the first 2000 results will be shown on this page. A notification will be displayed at the top of the page indicating that your alert results may have been truncated.
Buttons at the top of the table allow Extra and Pro members to save the alert results in a new SharpCharts or ACP ChartList, replace or merge with an existing SharpCharts or ACP ChartList, or download to CSV. Click the Blue “Edit Alert Criteria” button to open the alert in the Technical Alert Workbench and modify the alert.
If you have configured a Message for your alert, it will be displayed at the top of the page, right under the name of the alert.
Learn More.
The process for creating Price Alerts is much simpler than that for Advanced Alerts. To access the Price Alert Builder, click the “Price Alert” tab at the top left of the Technical Alert Workbench.
Next, choose your contact method(s): email, SMS text message, or a notification banner on the SharpCharts Workbench (note that the contact method is the only notification setting that needs to be set on a price alert). These work the same as they do for Advanced Alerts.
Then, choose the symbol that you want to watch for price crossovers. A mini-chart will be shown for that symbol, and the crossover price field will automatically be filled with the current price.
By default, the alert will look for the price to cross above that level, but, if you would like to be notified when it crosses below a certain level, simply click the “Crosses Below” button.
The crossover price can be adjusted manually, but you can also use the “%” dropdown menu to specify a certain percentage change (e.g. 2% Up). The price that corresponds with that percentage change is calculated for you and entered in the crossover price field.
As with Advanced Alerts, you can enter a message that will be displayed when the alert is triggered.
Once you've filled in all the fields, click the green “Save Alert” button to save your new Price Alert.
Whether you are creating an Advanced Alert or a simple Price Alert, you must save the alert before it can be run. This can be done by clicking the green “Save Alert” button.
Basic users can save just 1 Advanced Alert and 2 Price Alerts, while Extra members can have up to 100 Advanced and 200 Price Alerts, and Pro members can have up to 250 Advanced and 500 Price Alerts on their account. The number of alerts you have available will be displayed at the top of the Alert Workbench.
The Alert Management area of the Alert Workbench allows you to add, modify, delete and view your saved alerts.
When you first create a new alert, you can save it by clicking the “Save” icon (“Save As” for Advanced Alerts) in the Alert Management area or the green “Save Alert” button below. For Advanced Alerts, you will be prompted to enter a name for your alert and, once you have done so, click “OK”. Alert names are automatically-generated for Price Alerts.
To load a saved alert in the Alert Workbench later, click the dropdown menu in the Alert Management area and find your alert on the list. You can tell which saved alert is loaded in the Alert Builder because the name of the currently-loaded alert will be displayed in this dropdown menu.
Note: Make sure to save any changes to your current alert before switching to another one or creating a new one.
If you make changes to your saved alert, you can save the changes by clicking the “Save” icon in the Alert Management area or the green “Save Alert” button below. For Advanced Alerts, if you want to save a copy of your alert instead, you can choose the “Save As” icon and specify a different name for the new copy of the alert.
If you no longer need an alert, you can delete it by loading it in the Alert Builder and then clicking the “Delete” icon in the Alert Management area.
To view all your saved alerts and their statuses on a single page, click the “See All” icon in the Alert Management area. This will load the Your Alerts page. Please see our article in the Support Center to learn more.
Alert Message (in Alert Criteria Panel)
Check Syntax Button
Alert Components Area
Additional Resources
At Market Close. Alert runs immediately after the market has closed.
Your alert syntax is correct. Click "Save/Save As" to save your alert.
Technical Alerts continually search our entire database of ticker symbols, looking for those that meet specific technical criteria. The criteria can be anything from a simple price alert (e.g. the Dow crossing above 40,000) to a complex search involving multiple technical indicators (e.g. Canadian stocks that are in an uptrend, show oversold CCI values and have just experienced a MACD crossover).
When the number of ticker symbols that meet those criteria change in a specified way, interested parties are alerted to the change. This is a great way to discover securities worth investing in, at the time they are worth investing in. Essentially, alerts are technical scans that are automatically run for you by StockCharts.
We offer two different kinds of alerts:
Predefined Alerts are created by StockCharts for everyone to use, and generally check for broad market criteria.
Custom Alerts are designed by you, for you, and can be as simple or complex as you like.
StockCharts.com automatically runs a large number of important Predefined Technical Alerts during the trading day. When these predefined alerts are triggered, we notify users on .
Predefined Technical Alerts are available for everyone to see. You do not need to be a member to see those results. As the name implies, however, you cannot change or create new predefined alerts.
Learn More.
Custom Technical Alerts, designed by you, search our database using your exact technical criteria. Unlike with predefined alerts, you have control over what criteria are used and how you are notified when symbols meet the criteria in your custom alerts.
StockCharts members can create and schedule their own Custom Technical Alerts using whatever technical criteria they want.
To create, edit and schedule a Custom Technical Alert, you need to use the , on which you can create two different types of custom alerts:
For simple Price Alerts (notifying you when a specific symbol crosses above or below a specific price), you can use the new Price Alert Builder. This simplified form makes it quick and easy to create price alerts.
For more complex Advanced Alerts (using multiple indicators or criteria other than simple price crossovers), you can use the traditional Advanced Alert Builder. This section of the Technical Alert Workbench is very similar to the Advanced Scan Workbench, making it easy to convert a working Advanced Scan into an Advanced Alert.
To access the Technical Alert Workbench from , click the “Technical Alert Workbench” link in the Member Tools section or, alternatively, click the “New” button in the Your Alerts section. Once on the workbench, use the “Alert Type” tabs at the top left to choose whether you would like to create a Price Alert or an Advanced Alert.
Note: Only StockCharts members can create custom alerts. Basic users can create and schedule just 1 Advanced Alert and 2 Price Alerts, while Extra members can have up to 100 Advanced and 200 Price Alerts, and Pro members can have up to 250 Advanced and 500 Price Alerts on their account.
Learn More:
Alerts are processed by taking all active alerts for all users, running the associated scans and determining how many of those alerts have triggered (that is, how many alerts had the specified number of securities meet the designated criteria). Users whose alerts have been triggered are notified. This process repeats continuously throughout market hours, with alert engine data that is updated every 3-5 minutes.
Since alerts are based on daily data, users will only be notified once per day that a particular alert has triggered. For example, if you have an alert that looks for Intel to cross above $22 and the stock crosses above and below $22 several times during the day, you will only be contacted the first time the price crosses above $22.
Since all user alerts are processed dozens of times per day, significant performance gains can be made by making the underlying scans run faster. You can improve the performance of your Advanced Alerts by learning the best way to put scan expressions together. For more information on how to write scans and alerts that will run faster, see the topic in our documentation. As the speed of all scans improves, the lag time for alert notification decreases for everyone.
The Your Alerts page allows you to see all your alerts and their statuses at a quick glance. Each alert can also be paused, restarted or deleted from this page. The alerts on this page are divided into three sections: your custom price alerts, your custom advanced alerts, and today's predefined alerts.
Note: Only logged-in members can view the Your Alerts page.
You can access the by clicking the “See All” icon from the Technical Alert Workbench or by clicking the “Your Alerts” link on the Charts & Tools page or in the Member Tools section of the Your Dashboard page. To do so from other pages, simply click on your name in the top right corner of the page, then choose “Your Alerts” from the dropdown menu.
The Your Price Alerts section of the page will show all of your price alerts in a table with the following columns:
Links: The icons in the far-left column allow you to launch a full-scale , , , chart and more for the symbol.
Alert Name: Shows the price alert name. To edit the price alert, click on its name to go to that alert in the Technical Alert Workbench.
Last Triggered: If the price alert has been triggered, this column will show the most recent time it was triggered (in Eastern Time).
Above the table, you can see how many price alerts you have saved and how many more you can create at your current service level.
To add a new Price Alert, click the “New” button above the table. This will take you to the Technical Alert Workbench, where you can add a new Price Alert.
Learn More.
The Your Advanced Alerts section of the page will show all of your advanced alerts in a table with the following columns:
Alert Name: Shows the advanced alert name. To edit the advanced alert, click on its name to go to that alert in the Technical Alert Workbench.
Last Triggered: If the advanced alert has been triggered, this column will show the most recent time it was triggered (in Eastern Time).
Message: Shows the message that will be displayed when the alert is triggered.
To add a new Advanced Alert, click the “New” button above the table. This will take you to the Technical Alert Workbench, where you can add a new Advanced Alert.
Learn More.
Our Predefined Alerts section shows when common indexes, sectors, commodities, and breadth indicators cross above or below various levels. By default, this table shows only predefined alerts that have been triggered today. You can view all predefined alerts by clicking the “View All Predefined Alerts” button at the bottom of the table.
Learn More.
Last Price: Shows the most recent price for the symbol.
Delta: Shows the difference between the last price and the crossover price set for the alert. (If the symbol has already surpassed the target crossover price, this number will be negative.)
Message: Shows the message that will be displayed when the alert is triggered.
Status: Shows whether the price alert is running or has been paused.
Play/Pause: Clicking this icon will toggle the price alert between Running and Paused states.
Delete: Clicking the trash can icon will delete the price alert.
Status: Shows whether the advanced alert is running or has been paused.
Play/Pause: Clicking this icon will toggle the advanced alert between Running and Paused states.
Delete: Clicking the trash can icon will delete the advanced alert.
