Alerts based on crossing indicator lines?

iukini

Hello,

Total newbie here....unfortunately, not getting a lot of assistance from StockCharts "support" team, redirected to links/videos already seen and still having difficulties. They've moved onto suggesting I post questions here.

Unfortunately, not even sure of the "Category" for this post, since it doesnt state "Alerts" - so hopefully I am in the right area.

Basically, I have created SCANS and CHARTLISTS...and can SCAN (find specific stocks with 5-ish criteria, then am able to SEE CHARTS of the SCANNED stock queries 10 per page.

Thus, so far, so good!!! This is helpful.

However, the ultimate goal and objective of my joining and trying StockCharts, was to develop a simple indicator pattern, then be "Alerted" when the indicators cross one another. Basically, I have 3 indicator lines...

Referred to in my "training" materials, called out as "hourly" chart indicator lines.

Essentially, what I have found is that they are just SMAs, identified as:
#1 of 13hr/BLUE
#2 of 30hr/RED
#3 of 200hr/GREEN

SMA lines on the Charts.
Its working and I can see them fine.

But, my initial (say this, because I am sure I'd like to "refine" it later), desire is to be ALERTED specifically when the 13hr/BLUE and 30hr/RED lines cross, either direction (13hr/BLUE appears to indicate upwards/higher candles while atop the 30hr/RED indicator, and vice-versa, 13hr/BLUE below, demonstrating a downwards/lower candles when below the 30hr/RED)!

Simple...I would imagine, if I knew what I was doing...and I cannot figure out how to get this done.

Hence, this post.

Can ANYONE/SOMEONE provide me some samples/examples that I can use, or provide some guidance on how to do so?
How to setup StockCharts to run the SCANS against my SCAN criteria, display the SCAN results with specific ChartList indicators - and upon these indicators crossing (the 13hr/BLUE and 30hr/RED) one another, either direction...trigger a notification/alert to me.

I mean...I dont want to spend hours, days or week..."trying" to get this working, only to find out it cant/wont work.
I'd rather cut my losses (so far, this entire week), and move onto alternative solutions if I cannot get this to work soon.

Thank you very much in advance for any assistance, guidance or direction provided.

Totally appreciative!

Thank you,
iukini

markd

The scan engine only reads daily, weekly and monthly data. It does not read intraday data like hourly, half hour, 15 minute, 5 minute or 1 minute data. So, even though a 13 hour SMA or 30 hour SMA is longer than a day, you can't scan for it, because the scan engine doesn't have access to values aggregated at hourly intervals.

You can run alerts during the day on daily (or weekly or monthly) criteria because the scan engine considers the most recent intraday update data as the CLOSING data for the current day (or week or month). In other words, so far at least, Stockcharts caters mainly to swing traders and technically oriented investors working in the higher time frames, not so much to day traders. They may be moving in that direction, but so far, no go.

You could try modifying your parameters to "equivalent" daily values (2,5,30, or 2, 4, 31, depending on how you round). That should give you alerts (write the scans in the scan workbench and copy the working code to the alert work bench), but of course the crossovers will not be identical. They may be close enough to be useful, however.

You may already know this, but crossing scans use the "cross above" operator, documented here, near the top of the page:

https://support.stockcharts.com/doku.php?id=scans:advanced_scan_syntax

iukini

Hi markd,

Thank you for responding....

I hope the PICS/SCREENSHOTS come through...should be at the bottom of this message.

First, I think my training just REFERENCES HOURS and they are not actually hours. When I inquire, I get similar responses to yours...I honestly dont think they are hours and this technique is indeed for TIME FRAME/SWING TRADING - not INTRADAY trading, whatsoever.

Next, if you can see the attached/included charts below, I have identified some just yesterday from the SCANS, then viewing them as CHARTS....while the CROSSOVERS have already occurred, it is these points (RED CIRCLES/RED ARROWS) on the Charts that I am attempting to get "ALERTED/NOTIFIED" upon.

If you look at the LEFT SIDE, going downwards), it clearly shows all the following:

Ticker = Company Name
Date

RSI Chart

Then....
Ticker (DAILY)
BLUE LINE MA(13)
RED LINE MA(30)
GREEN LINE MA(200)

The Training states, the 13, 30 and 200 are being used as HOURLY indicators...but again, I am not sure that correct/true. Nonetheless, they do seem to provide proximity to key reversal/pivoting points - hence the desire to utilize them in the appropriate manner, accordingly, up or down.

That said....

It is DAYS/WEEKS of "Swing Trading" that I am attempting to utilize this for. Not intraday.

The take away is....ultimately, the goals and objectives;

Are to have the INDICATOR LINES RUN without crossing for 2, 3, 4, 6 or more weeks....prior and first too...the stock having an extended period, steady run (UP or DOWN) during these prior weeks, and next, upon their crossing get alerted/notified, then wait for 1-2 confirmation days of the trend and jump in for a bit (say 1 week or 2 weeks in the trends direction).

What I cannot understand/find out here, is how to achieve this - getting Alerted/Notified on the 13/30 crossover events;

1. I can view the Charts with the SMA Indicator Lines via:
Your Dashboard
Your ChartLists
Selecting the List Name (01_13hr_30hr_200hr)
View List As (drop down, 10 per page)
And it works great, fantastic...showing me the TICKERS (from a SCAN), also shows me the CHARTS (with the SMAs of 13,30,200) clearly visible.

2. Unfortunately, I cannot find how to view what the SMAs are regarding the actual Programming/Syntax/Code side ( set them in the Default Chart Views ), and I cannot seem to locate how to view its related code.

3. Once I have the programming/syntax/code in hand....create the CROSSOVER trigger for Alerts/Notifications....run/test them and ensure they work....then see how it goes over the remaining 3 weeks of my StockCharts trial, fine tuning as/where necessary (i.e. the prior run up to times (dont alert unless the time period prior, was a minimum of 2 weeks in either direction, up or down.), and maybe something else that might come to mind...

On some of the pages/reference materials, I see information, simply put, surrounding some of the following syntaxes:

[SMA(20, close) < 25]
[volume < SMA(5)]

Could/would this mean, those on the charts I am using....the 13, 30 and 200...could simply be a matter of:

[SMA(13)]
[SMA(30)]


A seemingly relevant example I also found, that appears to be VERY SIMILAR, is here too;

https://support.stockcharts.com/doku.php?id=scans:advanced_scan_syntax:crossover_scans

It is using SMAs 20 and 50...Looks like it would Alert based on the following 2 instances/occurances:

1. [SMA(20,close) x SMA(50,close)] for ONE direction and from what I can discern

2. [SMA(50,close) x SMA(20,close)] for the OPPOSING direction

Would it be applicable to my attempts for Alerts/Notifications?
Using the 13 and 30, such as:

[SMA(13) x SMA(30)]
then for opposite
[SMA(30) x SMA(13)]

Is this what I need to be using, testing, validating against....to see if the system will trigger Alerts/Notifications based on these?

Could it be that easy

Again, thanks for responding...much appreciated.

Hope to hear from you on this...

Thanks,
iukini




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markd

Where did you see this "Training" ? On Stockcharts? Somewhere else? do you have a link?

"The Training states, the 13, 30 and 200 are being used as HOURLY indicators..."

In any case, the SMAs from your examples are DAILY SMAs, not hourly.

As you guessed, an alert for a simple SMA crossover would be:

// start alert scan

[favorites list is your list name] // to get this line, select your list from the Chart List drop down

and [sma(13, close) x sma(30, close)] // sma 13 crosses above sma 30

// end alert scan

You could write a separate alert for each crossover variation.

You could run these variations as alerts during the day, OR, you could just run them each night as regular scans (from the Scan Workbench, not from the Alerts Workbench) after the market closes. A crossover that happens during the day may not be a crossover by the end of the day (in other words, the stock might close below the price that caused the crossover).

There is some work involved in maintaining alerts (re-setting them after they are triggered, which you might forget to do), so it seems to me a very minimal advantage to be notified during the day - but that's your judgement.

Also, everybody sees these common crossovers and all jump in together - so the pros often try to run their stops (drive prices down) after a bullish technical signal - so you can often get a better price if you wait a bar or two instead of jumping right in on the signal.

One more comment: you need a very strongly trending market for MA crossovers to work - otherwise, you can end up getting out pretty close to where you got in or even at a loss.

MAs are most useful (in my opinion) for establishing your bias - if your chosen MA is heading up, then you are bullish and buy dips (e.g. on a Stochastic signal crossing above 20), and if its falling you do the reverse. If price fails to make a new high when you are bullish (or a new low when you are bearish) then stand aside until the new direction becomes clear.

iukini

Hi again, markd, I appreciate your responses/posts, thank you for your time and efforts!

So, little background...

Recently, after serving 13.5 years at one employer, I was "dismissed" because I was on multiple, consecutive medical leave periods and exhausted all my time "PTO" time during Q4/2019 and Q1/2 2020. Additionally, there was SERIOUS miscommunications regarding proper FMLA/QMLA (job protection forms, particularly from Doctors though) - but also between myself and the Employers HR department (in 4 months, not one phone call received from them, while I myself had called them 2-3X's monthly, with no responses) and as such...ultimately lost my job.

To be fair, it was likely to be inevitable anyhow...

Negative changes were pending and forthcoming that I was considering resigning anyways...and while I contested via arbitration their decision and lost against them...I am looking forward to the day when I can say, the silver lining in Q2/2020, was when my job cut me loose and let me go!

Having been in/out of the stock market over the last 30 years, typically profiting each time, I've now decided I'd like to give it a try full time at this point. I mean, what the heck???, now receiving both, State Unemployment AND Federal Govt Financial aids, combined allow me to easily "get by" for the next 6-9 months without any financial concerns whatsoever...including Health Insurance coverage too.

Past few weeks, I've run some numbers and discovered I would be able to move forward with a modest annual income of $20k-$30k a year, mostly because I have no monthly/revolving bills (i.e. no house mortgage, no transport payments on my cars/motorcycle/atv, no children/dependents, etc.).

Actually, discovered that my biggest expenses (consuming about 70% income) involve Food, Utilities, Real Estate Taxes and various Insurances (life, house, cars, etc) I have. Plus, I'd finally like to put my money to work for me at this point in time...Finally, I am at an age, where semi-retirement would be welcomed too...if possible!

There you have it, your now brought up to speed...=)

I have been researching many, many, many Stock Market services, newsletters and subscriptions over the last 2 months...and found the source of this particular charting strategy as a result.

His name is Jeff Bishop.
He is the Co-Founder of RagingBull (ragingbull.com).

They have NUMEROUS Services (I think some 20-30 in total), and while I have already tried a few of them...(and yes, made my $$$ back on most of the subscriptions in recent weeks), I am guessing unless I stick with maybe ONE or TWO of them each and every single day, the trades recommended (those I have the time/$$$ to enter), have for me at this time, been less consistent than desired...but I am in the opinion, it is likely a result of my own actions (not getting in same time, not getting out same time, not getting in on ALL trades, etc).

All in all, I'd consider their Services/Subscriptions above average vs. others I have used/tried in last 5-10 years.

Most of their Services/Subscriptions, are based on utilizing and leveraging Options Strategies.

I got in, initially, with both Jeff Bishops Bullseye Trades and Kyle Dennis Dollar Ace subscription service trials...and had 85%+ wins, with a few losses sprinkled in, but all trades were taken in small doses to start.

Anyhow, Jeff Bishop has a program titled;

"Total Alpha"

This is the one in which Jeff discusses these Charts and Indicators - the Total Alpha Service.

He looks at the SMAs as Hourly in his mind, so he states....but yes, I can see that they could be considered otherwise.

Yes, I understand regarding momentum/direction. Yes, I realize these would be best served running in the evenings upon daily closures/pricing. Yes, I understand about waiting on the sidelines for 2, 3 or 4 days too.

But I certainly appreciate your reinforcements of said understandings, too! Thx.

Well, I am on the WEST COAST (Washington State, almost 1130am), and a getting ready to leave out soon for Mothers Day (early), for my Elderly Mother-In-Law.

Appreciate your posts...markd - thanks!

Will give it a try and see how it goes tomorrow...hopefully get the Alerts to trigger and test against them with some success in coming weeks.

Thank you again, for your time and efforts in responding...more help than StockCharts Support Team! At least, they pointed me here for some additional guidance Credit due!

Have a great weekend and best wishes.

Thank you,
iukini

iukini

BTW, "recording" todays StockCharts LIVE Training!

https://www.earningsbeats.com/public/StockCharts-Features-and-Tools.cfm

Involves the following:
Presenters:
Grayson Roze, VP of Operations, StockCharts.com
Bill Shelby, Lead Software Engineer, StockCharts.com
Tom Bowley, Chief Market Strategist, EarningsBeats.com
Agenda:
2:00 - 2:10: Introduction
2:10 - 2:40: "Organizing your StockCharts.com Account," Grayson Roze
2:45 - 3:15: "Introduction to Scanning," Bill Shelby
3:20 - 3:50: "Paradigm Shift: Stocks Poised to Gain from COVID-19," Grayson Roze, Tom Bowley
3:55 - 4:25: "Creating Scans Using the Accumulation/Distribution Line," Bill Shelby, Tom Bowley
4:30 - 5:05: "Creating Portfolios to Beat the S&P 500," Tom Bowley
5:10 - 5:40: "Trading the Short Squeeze Opportunities," Tom Bowley

markd

Well, good luck with your plan. I don't know anything about the subscription services you mentioned, so no comments on that. I would say, though, that if you are using a method that relies on hourly data, you may not get the exact same results with hourly parameters converted to daily parameters on Stockcharts, so signals may not be timely. You might be better off using your broker's platform if it allows scanning and charting with hourly data.

Re Support - they do not offer scan writing help. If you can show that a scan is logically and syntactically correct but not retrieving the symbols it should, they will look into that (there are very rare data errors that might cause symbols not to show up). But if you can't figure out the logic or the syntax, you would come to this site for help.