It's a bit more complicated than that...I basically want to trade a breakout strategy, but there's somewhere between 3000 - 8000 lines of Java which will determine the exact price levels to monitor and from there it will still be somewhat discretionary (translation: haven't figured out how to automate the entire process yet). I could use IB or an external data feed to monitor my 500 or so stocks and ETFs every 10 minutes, but I figure such a monitoring service already exists. What I have been doing over the past few months is monitoring S&P500 heatmap on Finviz and then inspecting stocks with 2.5%+ movements for the particular breakout pattern that I'm looking for. This makes up a small part of my trading and the earlier that I can be alerted, the better.
I understand more now. My thinking is your "Java" code is your secret sauce which is being refined, and you need to reduce the manual effort (and possible introduction of errors) in relating that back to the "connection" to the Alert/Real-time data (this update needs to be as "no-touch" as possible to make the mechanism as seamless as possible). I am unaware of an off-the shelf solution. However, if you had a PC allowed to be running with Excel (for RTD connection to TOS), and use a mechanism suggested earlier by another poster, to have the SMS, email, or whatever Alert you desired be generated from Excel (or other app), it seems you can control all your variables. Note: You can use Excel as a conduit to the RTD if you like if you prefer to code only in Java. -- use a Win32 API to dynamically create the Excel sheets & RTD references desired and control externally from your preferred code. -- That is what I do (from Perl). -- But you would need a PC running, which you indicated is not what you desire. If you do discover an acceptable solution, I hope you post your findings. Good luck.
I don't think the alert capability that I am looking for exists. I can think of a few options: 1. Easiest: Contact IB and ask them to extend their API to include the ability to setup alerts. Since they already support alerts in TWS, it does not seem like this would be much work for them, but I might only one of a few subscribers who want this feature. Doesn't hurt to ask. I'll make that request today. 2. Second easiest: Develop an alert program in Java that I just leave running all the time on my laptop. I setup my tickers and price points the night before, then just leave it running. It would pull quotes from yahoo every 15 minutes or so. Pretty low overhead. I could extend it to send SMS or e-mail, but instead I'd probably just have it throw a pop-up. 3. Develop my own Android app (I have an Android phone) that does the same thing as number 2, but runs in the background. I could upload the alert list nightly from my laptop via Google workbook. I have not developed any Android apps before, but this would be nice to have as I could get alerts even when I am away from my computer / don't have to keep monitoring an app.
I am aware of that. The trouble is that I need to adjust, I dunno, 10-50 tickers and price targets everyday. Manually entering all those orders through TWS is a bit cumbersome.