3. Alert Conditions & Indicator Comparisons

A condition is a comparison: a left side, an operator, and a right side. Each side is an evaluating entity — something with a live value — so you can compare price to a number, price to an indicator, or one indicator to another.

Operands (the two sides)

Each side of a comparison is one of:

• Price — the instrument's price (the bar close).
• Vol — the bar's volume.
• An indicator output — any output of an indicator on your chart, for example VWAP, a Bollinger Band edge, or an Ichimoku line (Conversion, Base, …). The indicator must be present on the chart for the alert to read it. See Adding & Managing Indicators.
• A value — a fixed number. This is offered on the right side only, since a constant cannot be the thing being monitored.

When you pick an indicator, a second dropdown lets you choose which of its outputs to compare (for multi-line studies like Bollinger Bands or Ichimoku).

Only Price and Vol are offered as raw bar values — open/high/low are intentionally left out to keep conditions simple.

Operators

• Crossing — fires when the two sides cross in either direction.
• Crossing Up — the left side rises through the right side.
• Crossing Down — the left side falls through the right side.
• Greater Than — fires while the left side is above the right side.
• Less Than — fires while the left side is below the right side.

Crossing operators react to the moment of the cross: they compare against the previous bar, so they need one prior sample and won't fire if the price is already past the level when you create the alert — it has to cross afresh.

Greater Than / Less Than describe an ongoing state: they look only at the current value, so they fire on the very next update even if the condition is already true the instant you arm the alert (no fresh cross required), and they keep qualifying for as long as the state holds. How often that actually notifies you is governed by the trigger frequency — for example Once only fires a single time and then stops, while Once per bar re-notifies on each bar the state remains true. Both use a strict comparison, so a value sitting exactly on the level matches neither.

Tip: use a crossing operator for "tell me when it breaks this level," and Greater / Less Than for "tell me when it is beyond this level" — including right now, if it already is.

Interval (for indicator comparisons)

Indicators depend on a timeframe, so when either side is an indicator the condition shows a single Interval control. That one interval governs both sides of the comparison and defaults to the chart's current timeframe.

Because the interval is explicit, you can build multi-timeframe alerts — for example a 1-minute Price crossing a 5-minute VWAP — independent of what the chart is currently showing.

Background evaluation: an indicator comparison fetches its own bar history and computes the indicator independently of the chart, so the alert keeps evaluating even when you're viewing a different symbol or have the chart panel closed. It begins firing once enough history has loaded to satisfy the indicator's look-back.

Combining conditions (AND)

Use + Add condition to require several comparisons at once. The alert fires only when all rows are true on the same bar — useful for confirmations such as "price crosses VWAP and volume is above a threshold."

Examples

• Price reaches a level: Price · Crossing Up · Value 4,200.
• Price relative to an indicator: Price · Crossing · VWAP.
• Indicator vs indicator: Ichimoku Conversion Line · Crossing Up · Ichimoku Base Line (a classic TK cross).
• Volume spike: Vol · Greater Than · Value 1,000,000.
• Multi-timeframe: Price · Crossing · VWAP with the Interval set to a higher timeframe than the chart.

For the indicators you can reference here, see the Indicators Overview and the Built-in Indicator Library.

Next steps

Decide how — and how often — you want to be notified.

Next: Notifications, Triggered Log & Managing Alerts