How to Set a Stock Alert for a BMO InvestorLine Self-Directed Account Including Price Alerts

If you have a self-directed investing account with BMO InvestorLine you can set Alerts for a variety of conditions. An Alert is an email message. You can be notified when the price of a stock rises or falls past a certain point. You can be notified with the PSAR signals a reversal of trend. You can receive news updates about dividend announcements and Reuters reports. In fact there are more than 18 selections and many of those have sub-selections.

You can also set Market Alerts. For more information see How to Set a Market Alert for a BMO InvestorLine Self-Directed Account.

Here’s how to set a Stock Alert.

Sign in to your BMO InvestorLine account.

Setup the General Settings for your Email Stock Price Alerts from BMO InvestorLine

  1. Click on the Quotes & Tools tab near the top of the screen.
  2. Select Alerts. By default the Stock Alert tab is usually selected; However, if necessary, click on the Stock Alert tab.
  3. In the Email text field, type the email address where the alerts should be delivered. Remember some places of employment do not allow personal use of a work email address. You may wish to use a personal email account. Don’t lose your job for tracking whether Facebook has done a total face plant.
  4. Review the samples of what the Alert will look like in HTML, Text and Abbreviated text formats by clicking on the word Sample next to a selection.
    Once you have decided which format of Alert you wish to receive, click on the appropriate radio button to select it. (For example, I clicked on Text to select the Text email format.)
  5. If you do not wish to receive alerts after regular trading hours, for instance in the middle of the night, you can set a period of time during which no alerts will be sent. You cannot use this function to turn off alerts between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET on business days.
  6. If you wish to keep all of your alerts set up, but you wish to stop receiving alerts for 1 or more days, you can set a Vacation Hold on your alerts.
    For example, if you do not wish to receive any alerts on Tuesday February 12 or Wednesday February 13 because you will be in an important meeting, you can select February from the respective From and To drop down menus, 12 and 13 from the respective drop down menus and 2013 from the respective dropdown menus. Regular alerts will resume on Thursday February 14.
  7. Review your selections. If they are correct, click on the Save button.
  8. You will receive a message at that email address confirming you have set it to receive Alert email messages.

Set a Specific Email Stock Price Alert for an Investment with BMO InvestorLine

Setting a Stock Alert from the Quotes view

Next, you need to set for which stocks you wish to receive price alerts.

  1. From the Quotes & Tools tab, select Quotes.
  2. Enter the symbol name and click Go.
  3. Under the name of the investment, click on the Add Alert button.
    Note: if you have not set up the General Settings, the first time you try to set an Alert, it will take you to the screen with the steps described above.
  4. In the Create a new alert for: text field, type the symbol or company name of the stock you wish to track. As you type a company’s name, it will prompt you with suggestions you can click on to select.
  5. When you select a stock, it will bring up a new panel listing the last trade, today’s change, the 52-week range and the average daily share volume.
    You are given a variety of choices. You select the ones for which you wish to receive an alert.
    Click on the box to select a given choice, then fill in any appropriate fields, marked here with a ***.

From the Price Alert Triggers
Select any of the following items:

  • Price rises above $ *** CAD or drops below $ *** CAD
    If you select this option, you can also type in a short personal note to be delivered with the Alert. For example, you can add a note about what you paid for a stock.
  • Changes $ *** CAD from prior close
  • Changes [select 2.5, 5, 10 or 20%] from prior close
  • Reaches a new 52-week [select high, low, or either]
  • Crosses its [select 15; 30; 60 day; or any of 3 ] moving average
  • Changes [2.5; 5; 10; 20%] faster than the [S&P 500; DJIA; NASDAQ; S&P TSX Comp] [since previous: day’s close; week’s close; 2 week’s close]
  • Trading volume exceeds daily average by [50; 100; 150; 200%]
  • Breakout sets a new [high/low] for [1 week; 1 month; 3 months; 6 months; 1 year; 5 years]
  • Daily price close
  • End of week price summary

From the News & Research Alert Triggers
Select any of the following items:

  • Dividend announcement
  • Comtex Canadian corp news
  • Comtex Canadian newswire
  • Reuters news
  • S&P Capital IQ Stocks in the news
  • S&P Capital IQ EPS/Dividends ranking change
  • S&P Capital IQ rating change
  • S&P Capital IQ stock report

From the Technical Alerts Alert Triggers
Select any of the following items:

  • The [5; 10; 15; 20; 30; 50; 60; 90 day] simple moving average crosses [above/below] the [10; 15; 20; 30; 50; 60; 90; 200 day] simple moving average
  • [2 ; 5; 9; 14; 20 day] RSI crosses [above; below] [30; 50; 70]
  • PSAR signals a reversal of trend
  • Price is [above; below] the 20 day simple moving average
  • 14 day RSI [overbought; oversold]
  • Prices crosses [above; below][upper; lower] Bolinger Band Settings [10; 20; 50 day] period and [1.5; 1.8; 2] standard deviations
  1. Review your selections. If they are correct, to set the Alert click on the Save button.
  2. You will receive the message: Your alerts have been set.
  3. Click on the Close button to dismiss the message.

Setting a Stock Alert from the My Holdings Page.

You can also set an Alert from the My Holdings page.

Under the My Portfolio tab, click on My Holdings.
Look for your investment.
At the far right side of that line, click on the Action dropdown list. Select Alert.
Complete the Alert request and click Save.

Changing a Stock Alert for an InvestorLine Account

If you click on the set Alert button for an investment for which you already have an Alert set, it will open the Alert screen with your current settings. You can then change them.

You cannot have two alerts with different settings simultaneously.

You can also review all of your Alerts.
From the Quotes and Tools tab, click on Alerts.
All of your current Alerts will be displayed.
To review the details for a specific Alert, click on the name of the stock. A summary of your selection will appear below the stock’s name.
To change the details for a specific Alert, click on Edit.
To delete the specific Alert, click on Delete.

Related Reading

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Have you used InvestorLine’s Alert function? Did you find it helpful? Please share your experiences with a comment.

How Do You Decide What is an Ethical Stock or ETF to Invest In?

Many investors would like to do the “right thing” with their hard earned money. But how do you decide what exactly is an ethical stock or ETF in which to invest? Like most things ethical the decision is fraught with complications.

Are Stocks that Lead to Poor Health Unethical?

Are Tobacco Company Shares an Ethical Investment?

Many investors won’t buy stock in companies that make or distribute cigarettes. They feel for personal or professional reasons that the health risks of smoking tobacco are very high.

Other investors make their decision purely from a financial point of view.
Some see the high profits made in the recent past. One tobacco company, for example, climbed from 1985 a share to 2400 a share in two years, a 20% gain. They want to buy into that kind of growth.

Other investors see the lawsuits, particularly in the USA, charging that tobacco companies should be responsible for the health care costs for their customers. Those investors shy away from tobacco stocks.

What about Soda Pop? Are Shares in Coke and Pepsi Ethical Choices?

There is a surge of bubbly brown liquid unrest roiling up about to break across the USA shores and it’s about cola. Actually it’s about all sweetened (and even some unsweetened) carbonated beverages.

There is no doubt to anyone living outside the USA that the United States is facing an unusually high level of obesity and of childhood obesity. Many living in the USA are starting to ask if the problem is soda pop and in particular the large volumes of soda consumed each year.

What, as an investor, is the ethical answer here. Having a 120-calorie glass of soda pop once a month is likely not a major cause of obesity. Drinking a Double Big Gulp daily, that apparently holds 64 fluid ounces, might be a major factor in weight gain. (That is 1.89 L of pop.)

NY City is actually testing a by-law to limit sales of sugar-sweetened sodas to a maximum size of 475 ml per serving purchased. One of the major reasons cited is that they are concerned that people are drinking too much sweetened pop.

Does an investor buy stock in a soda pop producing company on the assumption that people will be moderate in their consumption and stay healthy? Or does the investor have to take an ethical pass on the stock rather than contribute to the premature deaths of thousands of people who can’t resist the lure of one more sip?

Is KFC/Yum Brands More or Less Ethical to Invest in than, say, McDonald’s?

Speaking of obesity what about “fast food” restaurants? (I find fast food a strange term: I get my food faster when ordering dim sum off the carts than when ordering a burger at the local chain restaurant.)

If fast food restaurants are responsible directly or indirectly for obesity, malnutrition, or chronically high salt consumption, is it ethical to buy their stocks?

Yum Brands is one of the fastest growing chains in China. (Think KFC.) But does that mean they are spreading their USA recipes around the globe? Not necessarily. KFC stores in China sell black bean wraps. In Singapore at McDonald’s you could get chicken, ginger, chillies, and onions in a rice congee.

So an investor must decide whether fast food stocks are ethical even without knowing exactly what the end products are and how they will be consumed.

Surely Packaged Vegetable and Fruit Businesses Must be Ethical Investments?

The more you try to get a grip on an ethical investment, the more bits dis-attach and float away. Surely canned vegetables and fruits don’t lead to obesity? But do they lead to excess salt consumption? And what about the possibility that a chemical (BPA) is leaching from the can lining into the foods?

Stocks that Benefit from Charging Outrageous Interest Rates to the non-Rich

At first glance, financial institution stocks and ETFs might seem like a more ethical choice. After all, they don’t poison anyone or expand anyone’s waistline, as a general rule.

But what about the incredibly high interest rates charged by many of the credit cards sponsored by most financial institutions? Is it right to invest in a company that charges a hapless minimum-wager 19.98% per year on their $2000 balance, while offering only 0.25% before fees on that same person’s savings?

The same question arises about higher-risk mortgage companies and cheque cashing, pay-day loan brokers.

Even the big 5 banks might look a bit squirmy if put under the hand lens. Where do they get the right to charge $20 or more for a person to have their own money in the bank? $2 to get a statement once a month telling them what the bank says went in and out of their own account? $1.25 to make a withdrawal from your own account? Are these the same institutions that used to give customers toasters for opening an account? What happened to putting your money in the bank to make money?

And that’s not even looking at the types of businesses banks are supporting with commercial loans. Which brings us to:

Stocks that Denude the Earth and Destroy Natural Ecosystems

Well, gold is going up, so you can invest in that, right? It’s clean. It’s shiny. It’s harmless, even if swallowed. Unless of course you rely on the water supply that is contaminated with cyanide and mercury from mining operations. There can also be significant damage to ecosystems caused by mining for gold.

Strip mines have a well-known reputation for causing habitat destruction. Mining the oil sands is very controversial.

Petroleum production is another ethical quagmire. Most humans rely on petroleum fuels and products created from oil and natural gas. Yet most of those same people are not terribly happy with the techniques necessary to produce oil and gas. Can you spell frac’ing? If you live near a shale gas extraction plant, you probably can all too well from writing it on your protest signs.

Forestry is essential for generating the wood, pulp and paper and other wood products most people use and enjoy. The results of forestry, though, make us uneasy. So much so that it’s not unusual for logging companies to leave a strip of trees near roads to make the clear-cutting a few hundred yards further in less apparent. (There are also practical reasons for this in snowy areas.)

Smelting and manufacturing industries often bring out their share of protestors. They create too much noise, fumes, or truck traffic. They increase local water usage past desirable levels. Sometimes they even smell too good to suit neighbouring residents!
Even agricultural companies have their enemies. The wide scale use of pesticides and fertilizers alarms some people. The monoculture of seemingly endless fields of the same crop upsets others. The possibility of problems from genetic modifications to seeds and plants, and even animals, makes discussions heated.

Aquaculture is equally challenged. What if those domestic salmon escape and mingle with their wild brethren. Will diseases be spread or valuable genetic variations diluted?

Who Chooses What’s Ethical?

You can see why choosing investments based on ethics is a very personal process. We each have some sort of ethical rules we live by, even if I might question yours and you would definitely question mine.

I don’t see any short cut to ethical investing. You’ll have to review each investment you choose to purchase and ask yourself how it lines up with your beliefs.

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Are there any stocks or ETFs that you feel are too unethical to even consider? Please share your experiences with a comment.