Another example of potential loss would be a situation where on the broker’s side, you are holding a short position (when selling) while your strategy is holding a long position (when buying).

This could lead to a situation where your strategy appears to have closed a losing position when in reality, the losing position is still open and the market is moving against you.

For example, an order executed on the chart may not be executed by your broker. If the strategy and your broker are no longer in synch, unpredictable results and potential losses may occur.

The engine managing strategy alerts is not connected to your broker or exchange, and therefore cannot synchronize orders and/or positions.

If that is the case, you must be aware of the fact that simulated strategy orders on historical bars (arrows on the chart) may not behave the same way in realtime. In realtime (or forward testing) however, streaming tick updates can be used as a source if the strategy is configured as such.

Strategies are more susceptible to repainting than indicators because the broker emulator makes assumptions about price movement to simulate orders on historical bars.

If you are going to be using alerts for real trading, please take these points into consideration: Automatic strategy alerts can be very useful to trade in real markets, but just like the autopilot mode of an aircraft, they should be kept under close watch. Using strategy alerts to automate trading can lead to unexpected results if you don’t take into account the limits inherent to how strategies behave.

Stockfolio alerts settting