Originally Posted by: FeverTrader

Hi All, 

I am playing around with some Alerts for an Expert Advisor on a 3 minute chart. I keep getting multiple alerts for the following code

Ref(Mov(C,21,S),-1)<Ref(Mov(C,21,S),-4) AND Ref(Mov(C,55,S),-1)<Ref(Mov(C,55,S),-4) AND Ref(Mov(C,89,S),-1)<Ref(Mov(C,89,S),-4) AND Ref(WillR(11),-1) <-80

All I want is one alert when the above is true (i.e. when the moving averages have sloped down on the previous bar and the Will R% on the previous bar was less than -80). I seem to be getting the alert many times, I'm not sure what the trigger is. Is there a way to ensure there is only one alert when the previous bar meets a certain condition?

 I also select Skip all remaining alerts on the Alert pop up but it continues to show more alerts.

Thanks in advance

Hello,

The "Skip All Remaining Alerts" strictly refers to historical alerts, while the new pop-up alerts occur with each tick of data.

This will in part depend on which version of MetaStock you are using since we added some functionality to control this a bit. Within Tools > Options > Realtime we added the ability to throttle the expert alerts, based on a designated Throttle Time. However, a new bar will still trigger an alert even if the throttle time has not been met.

Using conditions such as Greater Than or Less Than can contribute to additional alert messages. Use of the Cross function can reduce the number of alerts, since the values would have to cross back down and then up again to trigger a 'new' signal, whereas a value simply needs to remain above/below a certain value to trigger a new alert when using Greater Than/Less than criteria.

Originally Posted by: FeverTrader

Thanks for that, Could you please explain how the throttle function variable is used? And also is there a way to alert for a cross above or cross below, rather than the simple cross? Regards

If Recalculate Expert is set to Throttled (as opposed to Live which calculates your formulas with each tick), then instead of potentially getting a pop-up alert with every tick of data, you will get a pop-up when the signal first becomes true, and then you will not get another alert until either a new bar forms, or the throttle time has been exceeded.

On a low time frame chart (say 1-minute) you can still get a decent amount of pop-ups if the condition remains true at the end of each minute (when a new bar forms). Considering you could get hundreds of ticks per minute, this still can be a lot less pop-ups though.

The Cross function considers Up/Down based on the order of the items inside the cross function. For example:

Cross(MACD(),MOV(MACD(),9,E))

The above formula triggers when MACD crosses above its 9 period exponential moving average signal line. If you wanted to look for the opposite cross (MACD crossing below its signal line) you would simply reverse their order within the cross function as follows:

Cross(MOV(MACD(),9,E),MACD())