Signal Action Setup

While "Signal Action Setup" is listed, for convenience purposes, on the Technical Indicators library webpage, it is not a technical indicator, but a fully independent Investor/RT Object designed to help with the automation of multiple tasks under a live datafeed environment (or in the Investor/RT market playback mode)

As with any other Investor/RT objects, a Signal Action can be created or edited in the Object Manager window, and a particular configuration of settings (i.e., actions) can be saved under a specific Preset name.

It was originally designed to be associated with the Signal Marker indicator. When an RTL signal turns true, the associated Signal Action can perform one or more tasks:

  • Play a specific sound name
  • Run a named schedule
  • Display a message in a message box.
  • Record a message to a text file
  • Treat the message as an alert - alerts can be sent to a designated email address and can optionally include an image of the chart in which the signal action execution was triggered.
  • Submit a named Trading Order - a trading order can optionally carry an automated order management Trading Strategy.
  • Execute a button inside the chart in which the signal action execution was triggered.

It is also possible to restrict the triggering of signal actions under certain circumstances by including a "Confirm with" signal rule with the desired syntax (this filter could reflect a specific market / indicator condition, a certain period of the day, actual trading positions based on the TR_POS token, etc)

Today, a signal action can be directly associated with multiple other technical indicators, i.e., Reference and Trend Lines, Zigzag, Multiple Price Highlighter, PriceVolumePattern(RTX), or Zones (RTX), each with its own specific trigger conditions. An "Execute Signal Action" task can also be included as the purpose of a Chart button (and, therefore, as a component of a Schedule), as a keyboard shortcut, or within the settings of a Quotepage Custom Column.

This is why the "Signal Action" is the most important I/RT component and solution provider when it comes to automating any tasks, from the most simple alert (play a sound when a signal turns true) to the most complex one, i.e. power live trading order executions of semi or fully automated trading system, thanks to its integration within the Trading Rule and Trading System Indicators, as in the example below

 

Without going into details, this signal action is linked to a trading system rule and will trigger the placement of a BUY STOP order to (possibly) enter a new position at a predetermined price. The message text box includes both V# and T# variables, determined by the Trading system's rules, as well as information about the actual trade position returned by live Trading order tokens. This message text is appended to a log file to gather all potential Entry orders of that type.

Presentation

List of Technical Indicators and I/RT Objects that can trigger a Signal Action

The Signal Marker Indicator

As mentionned, Signal Action was originally developed to be associated with the Signal Marker indicator, which includes, in its preference window, a very critical setting "Signal Completed Bar only"

This option determines when the signal action can be triggered: at any time during the bar, whenever an intermediate signal formula calculation evaluates to true, or at the end of the bar (assuming the end-of-bar calculation evaluates to true). This critical decision is always deeply linked to the type of formula syntax used inside the RTL signal, ie

  • With a formula such as CLOSE < MA, the "Signal completed bars only"  box is typically checked as the user expects to be alerted only once, when the formula definitely returns a true Signal. This can only be confirmed at the completion of the bar, when both the final values of the MA and CL tokens are known

  • With, a formula such as HI > SESST_DayHI.1, this box won't be check. Indeed, the user wants to be alerted as soon as this breakout occurs. As the SESST_DayHI.1 value is fixed during the whole duration of the bar, and as the HI value of the bar can only go up, as soon as it triggers once, there is no risk of getting a false signal at the completion of the bar.

Reference Line and TrendLine tools

In these cases, when the Reference Line or Trend Line indicator senses that the price has touched or broken through the corresponding line, the Signal action is triggered. The Reference Line indicator includes a "reset" setting that can be triggered by a timer or a "next bar" conditions.

Zigzag Indicator

For user convenience, this indicator includes predefined "alert when" rules in its settings (for example, a minimum zigzag leg amplitude or a given delta magnitude) that may trigger a specific Signal Action.

Note: If a user wishes to trigger a Signal Action based on more complex zigzag-based conditions, the solution is to create a dedicated RTL Signal formula (with the adhoc ZZO tokens) and add the corresponding Signal Marker / Signal Action combination on that chart.

Multiple Price Highlighter

MPH can trigger a signal action when a specific pattern is detected. Its settings also include a "Signal completed bars" checkbox, which forces the computation to be based upon completed bar data only, and also additional filter rules (a fixed or minimum number of prices being highlighted within the bar, a fixed or minimum number of consecutive prices being highlighted)

PriceVolumePattern (RTX)

PVP (RTX)  can trigger a signal action when a specific pattern is detected. Its settings also include a "Signal completed bars" checkbox, which forces the computation to use only completed bar data.

Divergence (RTX)

A signal action can be triggered when a divergence signal is detected when using one of the High to High or Low to Low calculation methods.

Zones (RTX)

This indicator includes the ability to trigger a signal action when a new zone forms.

Chart Button / Keyboard shortcut

The Button indicator includes as purpose "Execute A Signal Action". This way, any signal action can be triggered either manually by the user with a simple mouse click, or indirectly by any other I/RT object that includes an "execute chart button" action in its event sequence. 

If you prefer to use your keyboard (rather than a mouse click) to trigger a signal action, in the Files > Preferences> keyboard shortcuts menu, any function key can be associated with the Execute > Signal action  

Schedule

A "signal action" can be executed in a schedule by selecting the task "execute a chart button", with the selected button preset set to "Execute a signal action" (see above). As the chart button task of a schedule is linked to a specific chart, this intermediate step guarantees that the Signal Action is associated with the correct instrument.

Custom Column

Thanks to the custom column Action columns feature, a single signal action preset can be applied to a full list of Symbols, and not to a single symbol (as in the case of a chart environment)

Trading System Indicator

When used in the context of the Trading System indicator, the Trading System builder interface window includes 2 checkboxes (that can be set up for each trading rule)

  • The "Signal Action" which allows linking to a given trading rule a specific set of actions, i.e., typically the execution of one (or more) pre-defined trading orders

  • The "Intra-bar" checkbox: when checked, the corresponding trading rules, under a live data feed, are being evaluated during the completion of the bar, not only when the bar is completed. This checkbox is similar to the "Signal completed bars only" of the Signal Marker indicator

Signal Action setup example

A Signal Action named "CL Above 2 Deviations" that is referenced by a signal marker indicator as the alert action to trigger when a signal fires (In this case, the current Close is 2.0 or more standard deviations away for some standard deviation period).

This signal action plays the buzzer sound. An alert notification is generated (an example is included in the bottom section of the screenshot), and a trading order (stored under the Sell1Mkt preset name) is sent to the trading brokerage.

 

Signal Action Preferences

Play Sound

A specific sound name can be selected (see the comments at the end of this page about system-generated Signal Action for each built-in sound)

Alert sounds for charts, triggered by Signal Action and hidden because they are not part of the active layout, may be muted by setting the configuration variable HiddenChartsNoAlertSounds to true.

For adding/importing custom sound, please review this procedure

"Confirm with" rule

It is possible to restrict the triggering of signal actions under certain circumstances by including a "Confirm with" signal rule with the desired syntax (e.g., a specific market/indicator condition, a specific period of the day, etc.). Please note that the "play sound" action takes place regardless of the value of the confirm rule, but all other actions, discussed hereafter, won't take place.

Note: The purpose of the "Confirm with" signal might simply be to store some information into V# and T# variables. Indeed, a SET statement always evaluates to TRUE. Thus, a signal composed only of multiple SET(V#,..) and SET(T#,..) statements strung together with AND will always "confirm" the signal action. This way, you may store information into V# and T# for log or reporting purposes that will exactly reflect the status of the custom indicator or Signal values just before any signal execution.

Run Schedule 

A specific schedule name can be selected and executed alongside the other "signal action" options.

Message Text box features

The Signal Action setup includes a large text entry box for entering text messages up to 255 characters. the message text file can include any dynamic tokenized strings  including any C#, V# or T# variables, as in the "Annotation" indicator. %TOKENS are replaced with actual values.

When one of the possible text-related features is checked (see below), and the signal action is triggered, Investor/RT will construct a message, replacing any valid %TOKENS with the values for the particular ticker symbol that triggered the action, and display the resulting message in a notification window.

For example, if the text reads: %TICKER - BUY SIGNAL at %CL Bid/Ask is %BID,%ASK Time %TIME and the signal action is triggered on ESM6, a message window will appear showing text in the form: ESM6 - BUY SIGNAL at 7021.25 Bid/Ask is 7021.00,7021.25 Time 10:33:20

Here are the possible actions related to the fate of the actualised text message

  • Text to T#: the text message is stored in the selected T# variables. Please note that any character beyond the 30th will be truncated

  • Display message: the text message appears in a notification window (see the Signal Action example #1)

  • Alarm message: When checked, the text message will be handled as an alarm message in accordance with the user preferences in File > Preferences > Alarms > Alarm preferences (this box is usually left unchecked as the "Display Message" and "Message to Text" features of the Signal Action are more convenient than their counterpart available in the generic alarm preference window)

  • Email Alert & With Image checkboxes: the text message to the email address (setup in the File > Preferences > Email menu), possibly together with a screenshot of the associated chart image (when the signal action originates from a technical indicator included on a chart)

  • Message to File: write (or append) the text to a text file. When this is checked, the signal action enables entry boxes for specifying the filename and the path to the file where the text message is to be written. A "Browse" button is provided to the right of the path to make selecting the folder/directory where the file will be written easier.

  • Append features: Normally, the text of the message will be written to the filename specified, replacing the previous file by that name or creating a new file if needed. If you wish to "append" the text as a new line to the file, then enter the file name preceded by a plus sign. For example, enter a file name of "+signal_log.txt" and specify the path (folder) where the file will be placed. Then any messages generated by the signal action will be listed one after another in the text file named "signal_log.txt". The signal_log.txt file can be inspected at any time using File > Open > File.

Note: if the configuration variable LogSignalActions is set to true, every triggered Signal Action (whatever the chart hosting them) is logged to a global SignalActionLog text file stored in the admin directory.

Submit Trading Order

The pop-up list displays any existing Trading Order object (that can also be inspected through the Object Manager window)

The New button allows the user to create a new Trading order object, while the edit button will allow the user to adjust the settings of an already existing preset

Execute Button

When the Signal Action is included on a Signal Marker indicator (or any other technical indicator designed to trigger a Signal Action and present on a chart), any chart button present on that chart (and identified through the Chart button label) can be executed.

Comment about the predefined signal action (for each of the built-in sounds)

When you open Investor/RT for the first time, note that there is a system-generated signal action for each built-in sound. (Investor/RT creates Play Buzzer to play the sound name Buzzer) which can be reviewed through the Object Manager window

These sound-only signal actions are built in for your convenience when the only action you wish to occur is the playing of a specific sound. These sound-only signal actions have names that indicate they do nothing but play a particular sound; it is recommended that you create new signal actions for your own user rather than adding additional behaviours to these sound-only actions.

No examples. Let us know if you'd like to see one added.
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RTL Lesson 5 - Signal Marker Preferences: Display & Actions
RTL Lesson 5 - Signal Marker Preferences: Display & Actions

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