NinjaTrader Alerts: Setting Up Price Notifications for ES and NQ Futures

If you sit watching an ES chart for hours waiting for price to reach one level, you're spending attention on something the platform can do for you. NinjaTrader's alerts let you define the conditions that matter and get notified when they occur. The trick is limiting them to levels you'd act on, because too many alerts become noise you learn to ignore.

The Alert Methods

NinjaTrader 8 offers four routes:

1. The per-tab Alerts dialog, opened by right-clicking a chart or Market Analyzer and choosing Alerts. It lists the alerts configured for that particular tab.
2. Market Analyzer column alerts, which fire when a column value meets a condition. These suit watching several instruments.
3. Alerts built into indicators, which use NinjaScript to raise an alert when custom logic is true.
4. Strategy-based alerts, using the same NinjaScript call.

Menu names and chart shortcuts differ between versions, so confirm the current steps in the official NinjaTrader 8 help guide.

Setting a Price Alert

Right-click the chart or Market Analyzer tab you want to monitor and choose Alerts. Add an alert in that dialog, build the condition from the available data series or objects, choose a notification action, and decide whether it re-arms. The official Alerts dialog guide shows the per-tab setup. For a level you expect to act on, set the alert a few ticks before it, so the notice arrives while you can still check conditions. On ES, 4 ticks is 1 point, or $50 of price distance per contract. How much lead you want depends on how fast you can run your checklist. Test it on a live quote in SIM to see how much time you really have.

Alerts and the KPL Open Anchor

If you use KPL, remember they're fixed reference prices anchored to the opening print of the regular session at 9:30 AM ET. The standard ES/NQ map has four levels built from full-session and after-hours travel, and they don't move after the open. You can't set alerts on completed anchored levels before the open, because they don't exist yet. Before 9:30 you can alert on the overnight high and low or the prior day's levels, and once the open prints you add the KPL alerts and leave them in place for the session. The KPL trading page explains the map.

Sounds and Message Types

You can assign different sound files to different alerts. A practical scheme is one sound for levels below price (potential long areas) and another for levels above. Email alerts require mail settings to be configured first, so follow the help guide, and test with a throwaway alert. Message boxes appear on screen, but a screen full of them can hide your chart.

A Corrected NinjaScript Alert

The Alert() call in NinjaScript takes an id, a priority, a message, a sound path, a re-arm time in seconds, and two brushes. Here is an indicator example, with the condition requiring both an oversold RSI and price below a 20 period average:

protected override void OnBarUpdate()
{
    if (CurrentBar < 20 || State != State.Realtime)
        return;

    if (RSI(14, 3)[0] < 30 && Close[0] < SMA(20)[0])
        Alert("rsiBelowSma", Priority.High,
            "RSI below 30 and price below SMA",
            NinjaTrader.Core.Globals.InstallDir + @"\sounds\Alert1.wav",
            30, Brushes.Black, Brushes.Yellow);
}

Use a sound file that exists in your NinjaTrader installation and test the notification before relying on it. The sample file name is an example, not a guarantee about your installation.

Use a sound file that exists in your NinjaTrader installation and test the notification before relying on it. The sample file name is an example, not a guarantee about your installation.

Use a sound file that exists in your NinjaTrader installation and test the notification before relying on it. The sample file name is an example, not a guarantee about your installation.

Use a sound file that exists in your NinjaTrader installation and test the notification before relying on it. The sample file name is an example, not a guarantee about your installation.

You'll need using System.Windows.Media; for the brushes. The guard on CurrentBar prevents errors before the indicators have enough bars, and the 30 second re-arm keeps the same alert from firing on every tick. Whether this particular combination is useful is a separate question. An alert only tells you that conditions are true, not that a trade is good.

Keeping Alerts Useful

• Limit active alerts to the levels you'd really consider trading. Three to five is easier to respond to than twenty.
• Clear stale alerts at the start of each session so yesterday's levels don't fire.
• Use priorities so primary levels sound different from reference levels.
• Check your alert history after the session to see which levels were reached and whether you responded properly.

When the Alert Fires

Treat an alert as a prompt to run your checklist, not as a signal. Check the time and whether you trade that part of the session, check the context, confirm the stop and target in ticks and dollars, and only then decide. If your alerts depend on an open platform and a live data connection, a dropped connection or a closed workstation means no notification, so don't rely on them as your only risk control. Open orders and stops should sit with your broker or in bracket orders, not in an alert.