Ask HN: Review QuoteSentinel, personalized stock price notifications

by ezl • 16 years ago

15 18 16 years ago

ezl6• 16 years ago

I'd prefer you look it through, but if you want to cut to the chase, log in using: username: hn@quotesentinel.com password: hn

or register for a free account: https://quotesentinel.com/register/free

Quote Sentinel lets users set prices of interest for US stocks, then sends SMS/email notification when that condition is met.

bgimpert• 16 years ago

Umm, stop orders?

ezl6• 16 years ago

I think you're hinting that the existence of stop orders make this unnecessary. For some people that may be true.

Quote Sentinel only notifies you -- at the time the first Quote Sentinel script was written, I couldn't find something that would send me a text message when my limit was about to be triggered.

Basically I personally had 2 main use cases:

1. I want to go to lunch and I want to be notified if something is happening and I should come back to my desk.

2. Markets are dynamic. Today I'd love to buy AAPL 10 bucks lower than it is, but if the market drops like a rock, it might not seem that great anymore. For big moves, I'd rather be notified so I can make a decision with the new information instead of my limit/stop getting filled based on what I thought was a good idea before.

Its definitely not an app for everyone, but it solved a specific need for me so I thought it'd be worth turning it into an app for others.

joshu• 16 years ago

One thing I've always wanted is a view of the world that's beta-adjusted.

"Stock is up 7%, but down 1% if you factor in correlation to SPX"

tansey• 16 years ago

I think it's a nice site, but I don't know why someone would pay for the feature.

- Your motivating example is someone who wants to buy or sell a stock at a certain price threshold. Why wouldn't you just set a limit order or a stop-limit order? Both are available from virtually ever broker.

- I don't see which exchanges you support. Is it just the NYSE and NASDAQ? Do you support European exchanges?

What would probably be helpful is if you created a way for me to specify some complex criteria about the time, price movement qualities, technical indicators, etc. For example, I could imagine being long MSFT at $25 and wanting an update if the price drops by more than $0.25 in less than 5 minutes and the DMI is less than 30. I believe some brokers actually offer this kind of algo trading already, though I'm not sure whether they also allow for only sending updates.

As a side note, if you offered an API of some sort and allowed me to specify a time (e.g., I want the closing price of the 9:30 bar) and you covered all major global markets/indices (I'm interested in HSI, DAX, FTSE, CAC, TOPIX, ASX), then I would probably be willing to pay $10 a month for that service if you had live prices. However, I imagine you would run into serious data licensing issues (if you're not already?).

ezl6• 16 years ago

Tansey,

Thanks for the feedback. I will clarify that these are US equities.

The target market for now is somewhere around casual investors who invest themselves in the market generally, but less than professional customers that require exchange specificity.

I think the notion of complex filters is a good idea, but I am unlikely to get to it -- Including complex algo trading (or notifications based on those signals) becomes a monster project very quickly and suddenly trying to compete in the space of real Goliaths.

You hit the nail on the head though about "only sending updates". That's sort of exactly the service I needed a few months ago and couldn't find one I liked. Of course executions can be done with just stops and limits, but there have been times I've been filled after a news event and wished I had been there to insert the human decision making process between signal and trade.

brosephius• 16 years ago

yahoo finance already does this for free, as do many brokerages. what's your competitive advantage?

ezl6• 16 years ago

Good question brosephius.

I was not/am not aware that yahoo finance and other brokerages do it for free. Didn't find it immediately with a quick Google search either, so I'd appreciate the link (though I found another site that is new to me and seems to provide similar service)

At the time I wrote it, I couldn't find other instances of this service online.

I could constantly poll stock prices on my phone to see if my price points had been reached, but what I wanted was to not have to pay attention and be notified when an event occurred.

uptown2• 16 years ago

You can setup Yahoo stock alerts from here:

http://alerts.yahoo.com/st_watch_editalert.php

But anyone that's going to take action on these types of alerts likely already has a brokerage account with more-advanced alerting capabilities.

ritonlajoie• 16 years ago

Something strange (my point of view), the pricing page listing is from high to low. imho this should be the reverse.

Also, you are not telling (I haven't found the info) if your source is a realtime provider, or not, (nor whom). I think this is very important..

Good luck with your service and congratulations for the launch.

pdx• 16 years ago

I've been looking for a realtime quote API that's good and affordable. What service are you using?

cake2• 16 years ago

Very clean and polished site, well done.

It would be great to be able to see the full name of the stock, currency and last update time.

dirtae• 16 years ago

As others have mentioned, you can already do this on Yahoo Finance for free. Notifo also allows you to set up free stock price alerts: http://notifo.com/user/stockalerts

It's certainly possible for you to do a better job than those services, but if you want me to pay, your site needs to explain exactly why you're better than them.

ezl6• 16 years ago

Thanks Dirtae.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that it only serves iphone users (blackberry/android pending).

I suspect that iPhone (and generally smart phone) users will be less likely customers though, because its generally easier for them to check prices from their phone than for mobile users like me (no smart phone).

I certainly can't expect to be able to serve everyone who wants stock information. But I was right in my target market, so I'm crossing my fingers that there are others as well.

rguzman• 16 years ago

It seems that HN is not the target audience for this. The folks here probably need much more sophisticated tools and likely build those tools themselves.

Who is this intended for?

Ask HN: Review QuoteSentinel, personalized stock price notifications

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