Time to deliver on several suggestions requested by customers who took the time to give us valuable feedback.

Announcing Improved Alerts and New Alerts
Here is a quote from our Help section describing the improvements to Market Crossed Alerts:

The market crossed alerts appears when the ask price for a stock is lower than the bid price. These conditions occur when the stock is unusually active and often signal a turning point.

In some cases the alert server will describe the alert as "up" or "down". This distinction is based on the primary market. The assumption is that the primary market does not react as quickly as the ECNs. So if the bid on an ECN is higher than the specialist's offer on an NYSE stock, many traders assume the price will move up soon.

Here is the Help section's description of the new Trading Above, Trading Below Alerts:

Trading above occurs when someone buys a stock for more than the best offer price. Trading below occurs when someone sells a stock for less than the best bid.

These alerts typically signify a temporary condition where a stock is suddenly more volatile than normal. Often this is caused by traders who know that the stock price is about to change quickly, so they choose the fastest execution venue rather than attempting to get the cheapest one. Highly experienced short term traders may choose to join the action, in anticipation of a fast change in the stock price. Longer term traders still take note of this condition because it is a leading indicator of which stocks will have interesting activity.

How Feedback Feeds Improvement
Ideas for improving Trade-Ideas go to a team that picks it apart, models it on paper, and develops it for testing with a beta group of traders. If it's still alive after these steps we put it into production.

Notes
Note that there's no need to re-download or do anything to start using the new alerts. The new items just appear. Why get in a subscriber's way to making better trades and managing risk?

Also note the mention of the beta group of traders - if you would like to join a small group that tests the latest upgrades to Trade-Ideas, please leave a comment or email us at [email protected].