A diligent trader has done their study and knows what price levels they want to be notified at. This entails objectively examining the markets and looking back at historical fundamentals as well as future fundamental developments that might function as a price trigger.
A disciplined trader then draws up a trading plan that takes the risk variables into consideration. If you have a day job, like the majority of people, you are unlikely to have the luxury of sitting in front of your trading terminal all day.
Rather, it would be wonderful if you received some form of notification when the price reached a certain threshold over time. While there is an integrated method for sending you price notifications utilizing the MT4’s features, it is undoubtedly cumbersome.
When trading, the price alert indication might come in helpful in this situation. Imagine getting an automated notice after you’ve prepared and done your study on the markets and pricing has hit a specific level.
You would then be able to immediately access your MT4 trading platform (through the mobile app) and place your trades based on this alert or trigger. You might also choose to receive a price alert when your trade is activated.
Whether you’ve been trading on the MT4 platform for a long, you’ll notice that there are no notifications to notify you when your trade was initiated, whether it reached your intended take profit level, or if the price hit your stop loss level.
How about utilizing a simple tool that allows you to move the horizontal lines around and receive notifications automatically? This is exactly what the MT4 price alert indicator accomplishes. You can use it since it is a basic yet adjustable tool.
It can send you an email when the price hits a certain level, informing you that your requirements have been satisfied. This can save you a lot of time because you won’t have to connect to your MT4 mobile trading app every few minutes to see if your trade was triggered or any of the other possible circumstances.
Before we go on to explain how the price alert indicator works, let’s look at the basic functions that are built into the MT4 trading platform. This will give you two choices on how you can set alerts for yourself. This comparison will also reflect how easy it is in using the price alert indicator that we talk about in this article.
How to set price alerts using the MT4 platform?
When you power up your MT4 trading terminal, head to the lower section where you will find details such as your trades, capital, and so on. Here, navigate to the Alerts tab. This is the space where you can set price alerts by default.
Let’s start with the very basics. Say you are looking at the gold chart. There are two scenarios here. Firstly, you have analyzed the markets and you want to go short when the price reaches the 1300 level. You might also have set up a short trade at the 1300 level with your stop loss at the 1250 level. So, in order to be notified when the price reaches these levels, you can configure it using the alerts tab.
To do this, right-click anywhere on the alerts tab and select create. This will open the alert indicator window on your MT4 platform.
In the above chart, you can see the MT4 price alert window in action. After right-clicking in the space, we configure the alert window indicator. In the above example, we set the alert to be triggered when the bid price is greater than 1300. This means that when the bid price moves above 1300, an alert is triggered.
Note that in the above example, we have used only a sound alert. You can change this to an email alert as well. This alert is also constrained by the time limits. For example, if gold price does not reach above the 1300 level, the alert is terminated.
In the next example, we have another case where an alert is set up but without time constraints.
In the above chart, the alert tab can be seen where we set the alert to be sent when the price falls below the 1250 level. This alert will continue to play out with no end in sight. If you do not configure the alerts properly, you will have to end up starting to set up the alerts from the beginning or end up with annoying alerts that are useless.
While the above method is done by making use of the default MT4 functionality, you can see that it is a bit tedious. Assuming that you want to set the alert for entry, stops, and target price level, this means you will need to set up three alerts in total.
Assuming that you want to set up alerts for five instruments, 15 alerts need to be configured in total. If it takes you on average, 30 seconds to set up the alert, that’s about 7 and a half minutes of time required (provided you are very proficient with the alert functionality).
One way to avoid this is to make use of the price alert configuration indicator. This custom indicator will allow you to set up alerts by simply entering the price levels that you are interested in.
Because you are using the horizontal lines as a visual guide, it is a lot more user-friendly compared to the traditional way of setting up the alerts. It also makes it easy and you can set up the alerts on a number of instruments without spending too much time.
If the above alternative sounds like a better option for you, then read on to the next chapter on how we can use the MT4 price alert indicator to alert you when the price hits a certain level of interest.
What is the MT4 price alert indicator?
The MT4 price alert indicator is basically a handy tool that is very simple. It eliminates the need for setting custom alerts via the MT4 default functionality. By just using the configuration window, you can apply this alert to multiple instruments.
What’s better is the fact that the MT4 price alert indicator can be applied to the same chart but with different time frames. You can start to see the benefits that the MT4 price alert indicator provides for you.
The first step to using the MT4 price alert indicator is to download it. Once you download the ex4 file, you can then copy/paste it into your MT4 indicator folder. From this folder, you can then drag/drop the indicator onto the chart of your choice.
When you activate the indicator by dragging it onto the chart, you will be presented with the configuration window. The configuration settings for the MT4 price alert indicator are very easy as seen in the picture below.
In the above picture, you can see that there are just four fields to enter. The first three are the three price levels of interest. You can think of this as the entry, stop loss and take profit levels.
They are also aptly defined by the names such as When the price goes below when the price goes above When price reaches.
These conditions allow you to set up alerts based on different scenarios and market conditions. For example, if you want to set a sell stop order, you can set up or activate the When prices reach. This will send you an automatic alert when the price reaches the area of your interest.
Likewise, once you are into a trade, you can use the three settings to alert you to the entry price (When the price reaches), the stop loss level (when the price goes above/below), and the target profit level (When the price goes below/above).
The versatility of this MT4 price alert indicator is that you will be automatically alerted when your trade is triggered, when it hits the stop loss or when the price hits your take profit level. This eliminates the need for having to make use of the MT4 mobile app and to log in every few hours to check how your trade is faring.
You can use the MT4 price alert indicator to also alert you when the market conditions are met. This can enable you to take market orders after you get the alert.
The final configuration of the MT4 price alert indicator is whether you should be alerted via email or not. If you enable email alerts, then make sure that your email settings are configured using the MT4 options window.
Note that for this alert indicator to work, you will need to keep your MT4 trading terminal running. If you are a serious trader, then chances are that you might be using a VPS (virtual private server). This allows your MT4 trading platform to keep running 24 hours a day and you can receive the alerts without interruption.
If you do not have a VPS running, then you can just keep your desktop-based MT4 trading platform running in order for this indicator to work.
There are some visual configurations as well that you can make. This is basically limited to the thickness of the lines.
The chart above shows what happens after you set up the alerts. You can see that the green line is set to 1300 which means that you will get an alert when the price goes above 1300. The red line is the area where you will be alerted if the price falls below this level.
Finally, the yellow horizontal line indicates the price level to which you are alerted when it touches this level.
MT4 Price alert indicator – Conclusion
The MT4 price alert indicator is a very easy-to-use tool. This can complement any existing trading strategy. Assuming that you trade with pending market orders, the MT4 price alert indicator can be easily used to alert you when your trades are triggered and whether they closed in profit or a loss.
The price alert indicator can also be used in market analysis. If you prepare the markets over the weekend then instead of checking the charts every day to see if the desired price level was reached, you can simply use the MT4 price alert indicator to do the job for you.
This indicator is very useful if you trade a lot and trade very often. But there are also some drawbacks to this indicator.
To begin with, the MT4 price alert indicator works only when your MT4 trading platform is working. This means that if you close your trading terminal, the indicator will not work. Traders who use a VPS service will find that this tool is better used. Because your MT4 trading terminal is practically running 24 hours a day, you will start to receive the price alerts as and when it happens.
You also need to ensure that your email configurations are correctly set. Because this indicator sends out email alerts, it is ideal that you check your SMTP settings on your MT4 trading terminal in order to avoid missing out on the email alerts.
Overall, as you can see the MT4 price alert indicator is a good tool for traders who tend to plan ahead and wait for the right market conditions. It is also an easy way to get alerted to how your open trades are performing.
While it is relatively easy to log in to your MT4 mobile trading app to check the status of your trades, the MT4 price alert indicator simply sends you an email. This means that if you are in a place where mobile data is expensive, the option to use the MT4 price alert indicator is worth it.
