I'm just starting to experiment with condition alerts, and just as an example I created a simple pair of conditions comparing the volume of the current bar to the previous bar. I was using a 30-minute chart...

I kept getting an alert that the current volume is less than the previous bar's volume. This is usually going to be the case when the current bar is new and hasn't finished (or closed) yet.

So my question, for intraday, is ... how can I "ignore" the current bar and just trigger alerts based on the most recently "finished" bar?

Thanks.

V1 > V2 would return True when the last completed bar's volume is greater than the previous bar's volume.  Is that what you're looking for?

This is only true while the market is open.  After the market close, the last bar is complete so you would want to use V > V1.

Hi StockGuy,

The volume condition was just an example. Since I never used alerts before I set up four simple conditions to check out the alert console, see the text message alerts on my phone, etc. Figured I'd start with price and volume for grins just to see how it all worked. Kind of a "shakedown cruise".

That's when I noticed alerts firing before the current intraday bar finished. I wasn't planning on using PCFs. The conditions, easyscans, and alerts I'm actually interested in have more to do with things like the PPO, ADX, and +DI/-DI.

I've been using 30-minute charts lately. There are times I can just eyeball the chart, but when I need to step away I'd like to send text message alerts to my phone, but only after each half-hour bar is complete.

I thought you could toggle a setting to "ignore" the current bar unless it's complete, but I may be thinking of another piece of software I was looking at.

Any thoughts?

Oh, and is Bruce enjoying his vacation on Martha's Vineyard? :)

No, TC2000 doesn't allow you to ignore the currently forming bar.

Bummer. Probably want to add that to Worden's official "honey do" list :)

I haven't seen all the other software packages out there, but I swear I've seen that feature somewhere. The current situation is great for end-of-day traders, but at end of day I have time to eyeball the charts :)

I suppose I can use the mobile app and configure a chart that would appear half-way decent on my iPhone, but then I'd have to look at it every half-hour, which is what I was trying to avoid.

My dream scenario would be getting half-hour "sitreps" on an Apple Watch via text message ... and only have to jump on a phone, tablet, or laptop when I wanted to get in or out of a trade.

I might still be able to make that work ... gonna have to think about how my tradeable EasyScans are impacted by looking at the currently forming bar.

Thanks for the info!

... think I might have a work around. Most indicators (I mainly use PPO, ADX, +DI/-DI) don't seem to have an "offset" feature, but moving averages apparently do, so ...

I could conceivably build a 1-period simple moving average of price, with an offset of one, and build my PPO, ADX, and +DI/-DI using that as their data source. That might do the trick. Gonna have to sleep on it.

Nice idea. That should work.

Thanks! That's what I thought ... shouldn't take all that long to put together ... maybe I'll get that Apple Watch after all :)

Haven't played with offsets in a while - guess what I really need is -1 ...

I think you need to use +1.  That will slide the previous (complete) bar forward.

Thanks! Guess I either need more coffee, or a nap. I'll give +1 a try.

Btw,

I did create a 1-period simple moving average of price with an offset of +1, and a pair of conditions (just for testing) of that "price offset" moving up more than 0.01, and moving down less than 0.01.

Even though the chart is a 30-minute timeframe, the alerts keep firing off every minute. I'm guessing this is because I have the "Restart this alert when it triggers" setting enabled, and set to the default of "1 minute later".

I'm assuming the only way I can make this work is to change that setting, but "30 minutes later is not an option ...

Since I'm working on a 30-minute timeframe, what I'm ideally lookiing for are alerts that fire off every time a 30-minute bar is completed.

<sigh>

I see, unfortunately that's not an option.

I guess my question is: what does the "Time Frame" setting above (Create Condition Alert) do? I was hoping the alerts would only fire off once every time the time frame interval completed.

Maybe there's a way to do this I haven't thought of yet.

Any ideas?

Looks like we just crossed posts. Bummer. Thanks.

The time frame setting tells the alert what data to use.  If you're looking for a crossover on an hourly chart, then the alert needs to know that.

Isn't that redundant, though? When I'm doing a Create Condition Alert, I have to select a Condtion. When I do Create Scan Condition, the condition already has a Time Frame setting.

Maybe my brain is already in weekend mode :)

The alert has it's own time frame setting.  It will change to match the time frame of your saved condition, but you can select a different time frame if you want to.

Interesting. Let me just see if I understand ...

The alert's time frame defaults to match the condtion's time frame, unless you select a different alert time frame.

Yes. 

Got it. Thanks!

I have made suggestions as the alerts need a lot of improvement but intraday apparently in not Wordens priority.. It is frustrating and I haven't found a charting progran that you can write code for as easily that lets you describe bar setups..

Still looking..