How to Receive Stock Price Alerts

Many investors purchase stocks for the long run, often planning for their retirements. Others, however, trade stocks on a much more frequent basis and therefore require more up-to-date information. Through brokerages and service providers, you can receive stock price alerts in real time, letting you make educated stock purchase or sale decisions.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. Log into the service that you use to track your stock portfolio. You can use the service provided by an online broker through which you have purchased stocks or a free service offered by financial websites (see Resources).
2. Select the stock for which you would like to receive stock price alerts. You can select a stock directly from your portfolio or enter the stock symbol manually.
3. Determine the type of stock price alerts that you want to receive for the stock selected in step 2. You can receive price alerts when the price drops below or climbs above a particular threshold. You can also specify price alerts based on a percentage change of your purchase price.
4. Choose the way in which you would like to receive your stock price alerts. Depending on the service provider sending you the stock price alerts, you may be able to receive them via email, through an instant messaging service or on a mobile device.
5. Update your stock price alerts as you make changes to your stock portfolio. If you have sold a stock that you have no intention of repurchasing, you can cancel the stock price alerts. You may also want to change the type of price alerts that you receive if you purchased stocks that you had been tracking.

Tips & Warnings

• If you do not know the symbol of the stock for which you would like to receive stock price alerts, you can look up the symbol based on the name of the stock.
• If your email address or telephone number change, update your stock price alerts profile so that you continue to receive them.
• After setting up your stock price alerts, test the way in which you receive them. You may have entered your email address or phone number incorrectly, which could result in your not receiving the stock price alerts.