Exercise: Creating a stock alert

In this exercise you create an alert using a Stock property condition so that you can be notified when the target stock’s price crosses a threshold. While this exercise uses the last price, it’s just as easy to use other supported properties, such as implied volatility, IV Rank, or calendar days until earnings. The Stock property condition is very similar to the Option property condition, so the concepts used here apply for alerts around those as well.

The exercise begins on the dashboard. If you are not on the dashboard, you can always use the Dashboard link at the top of the window to get there.

Locate the section that says I already know the stock I want to trade. This is the path to get to the overview for a specific stock.

Start typing “microsoft” and select the MSFT stock when it appears.

The stock overview page loads for MSFT. This page provides a wealth of information about the underlying across all terms. Learn more about this view in Finding optimal trades with the options search engine.

The breadcrumb dropdowns at the top of the view provide streamlined access to a variety of platform features.

From the stock dropdown, select Create stock alert.

The shortcut opens a new alert form with a default Stock property condition. You can customize it by setting a few fields. Alerts created with a shortcut will default to a generic name, such as “MSFT alert” here. You can change this at any time if you would like a more descriptive name.

For Property, select Last.

For Comparison, select Greater Than.

For Low, enter “1”.

After saving, this alert will trigger once the target stock trades above $1. Since it’s pretty likely that’s already the case, it will trigger the first time it’s evaluated, which should be within five minutes.

Select Save.

Watch your email for the notification. Review it once received.