Overview
This article guides you through the process of setting up a TradingView alert message to place a limit order on the exchange. If you're new to this process, please check out the "Start Here" section in the menu or read the How it Works article to get an understanding of the overall process.
What is a limit order?
A limit order is a type of order to buy or sell an asset at a specific price or better. A limit order is executed only when the market price reaches the specified limit price or better. Unlike market orders, limit orders provide traders with greater control over the price at which they trade an asset.
A limit order specifies the maximum price a buyer is willing to pay for an asset or the minimum price a seller is willing to accept. For example, if a trader wants to buy Bitcoin and is willing to pay no more than $20,000 per Bitcoin, they can place a limit order to buy Bitcoin at a price of $20,000 or lower. The limit order will only be executed if the market price reaches or falls below $20,000.
A limit order to buy is placed below the current market price, while a limit order to sell is placed above the current market price. If the limit order is not immediately filled, it will remain open until either the limit price is reached or the order is canceled.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Limit Orders:
Limit orders have both advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, they offer traders a higher level of control over the price at which they trade an asset. Traders can set a maximum purchase price or a minimum selling price, which can assist them in avoiding paying too much or selling too cheaply. On the other hand, there is no assurance that a trader's limit order will be filled at their desired price, which is a disadvantage.
How are limit orders different from market orders?
With a limit order, you specify the maximum price you're willing to pay to buy an asset or the minimum price you're willing to receive to sell an asset. The order will only execute at your specified price or better, which means you won't pay more to buy or receive less to sell than what you specified.
On the other hand, a market order is an order to buy or sell an asset at the current market price. Market orders execute immediately and the price you pay or receive will depend on the current market price at the time of execution. This means that you have no control over the price you pay or receive when you use a market order.
The key difference between a limit order and a market order is the control you have over the execution price. With a limit order, you have control over the price but not the execution. With a market order, you have control over the execution but not the price.
Limit orders are useful when you want precision and the ability to control the price you pay or receive for an asset. For example, if you want to buy a stock but only if it falls to a certain price, you can place a limit order at that price. If the stock reaches your specified price, your limit order will execute and you'll buy the stock at your desired price or better.
Market orders are useful when you want to execute a trade quickly, regardless of the price. For example, if you want to sell a stock quickly before the market closes, you can place a market order to ensure the trade is executed before the market closes. However, keep in mind that market orders can be subject to slippage, where the actual execution price differs from the expected price due to low liquidity and changes in market conditions.
The "limit" Order Type
To specify a limit order, you simply need to set the "order-type" parameter to "limit" and specify the "price" at which you are willing to buy or sell.
The Code
To begin, please ensure that your TradingView alert has the correct Webhook URL that contains the unique URL to your bot. Additionally, it's essential to read and understand the How to Create a TradingView Alert article before proceeding.
To get started with the integration, you can either use the Code Generator to generate the code or copy the code below and adjust the values manually. Click the "Copy" button below to copy the code and paste it into your TradingView alert message.
Buy 2 BTC at $20,100
{
"asset-pair":"BTC-USD",
"action":"buy",
"order-type":"limit",
"price":"20100.00",
"amount":"2.0"
}
Buy BTC at the current price using 2.0% of the available account balance
{
"asset-pair":"BTC-USD",
"action":"buy",
"order-type":"limit",
"price":"{{close}}",
"amount-percent-balance":"2.0%"
}
Note: You can use the TradingView {{close}} variable in your alerts to dynamically set the current price when the alert is triggered!
* trailing-stop not available on all exchanges.
One of amount, amount-percent-balance, or amount-percent-position is required. The "amount" is a decimal and represents the exact number of units, coins, or shares that you would like to buy or sell. (ie. buy "2.0" BTC).
(Optional with limit orders) The "price-value-tracker-id" can be specified instead of the "price" parameter if you want to dynamically set the price using the high, low, or average value from a value tracker.
(Required with price-value-tracker-id) "high" or "low" or "avg"; This tells the bot to take the high, low, or average of the specified value tracker's data set.
(Optional with limit orders) "true" or "false"; If you send a post only order, your order will not be allowed to take. So if it would provide it will be sent as a normal Limit Order, but if it would cross the book it will be canceled instead. See this article for more details.
(Optional with limit orders) "true" or "false"; Immediate or cancel (IOC) orders are the opposite of post only: they can only take. If you send an IOC that would not immediately trade, it will be canceled. See this article for more details.
(Optional) "true" or "false"; These orders can only close your positions and will only trade if it would decrease your position size. You can combine with any order type: limit, market, stop, trailing-stop, or take-profit. See this article for more details.
(Required with "stop" and "take-profit" order types, but not required if a Value Tracker is specified.) This is the price at which you want your stop or take profit to trigger. Example: "95.99"
(Required with trailing-stop orders) The "trail-value" should be a percentage (ie. "3.25%") of the current price.
(Required with trailing-stop orders on the FTX exchange) The "current-price" is needed to calculate the correct trailing value in the quote currency using the trail-value percentage. In most cases, you will want to use the "{{close}}" TradingView variable to set the current price dynamically like so: "current-price":"{{close}}"
(Optional with limit and market orders) "true" or "false". Include this if you want to add a stop loss trigger order to your limit or market order, in the exact same alert as your limit or market order.
(Required with "add-stop") Example: "95.99". The price at which you want to set your stop. Alternatively, you may use a value tracker to set your stop price. In this case, use "stop-value-tracker-id" instead.
(Required with "add-stop") The amount can be specified as a decimal (ie. "150.00") or a percentage (ie. "50.0%") of your position size.
(Optional with "add-stop". Also optional with "stop" order types, but only when using a Value Tracker with the stop.) "limit" or "market"; Will default to market if not specified.
(Optional with "add-stop") Example: "your unique id". The value tracker id that contains the high, low, or average value that you want to use to set your stop. Alternatively, you may use "stop-price" to explicitly set your stop price.
(Required with "stop-value-tracker-id") "high" or "low" or "avg"; This tells the bot to take the high, low, or average of the specified value tracker's data set.
(Optional with limit and market orders) "true" or "false". Include this if you want to add a take profit trigger order to your limit or market order, in the exact same alert as your limit or market order.
(Required with "add-take-profit") Example: "95.99". The price at which you want to set your take profit. Alternatively, you may use a value tracker to set your take profit price. In this case, use "tp-value-tracker-id" instead.
(Required with "add-take-profit") The amount can be specified as a decimal (ie. "150.00") or a percentage (ie. "50.0%") of your position size.
(Optional with "add-take-profit") "limit" or "market"; Will default to market if not specified.
(Optional with "add-take-profit") Example: "your unique id". The value tracker id that contains the high, low, or average value that you want to use to set your take profit. Alternatively, you may use "tp-price" to explicitly set your take profit price.
(Required with "tp-value-tracker-id") "high" or "low" or "avg"; This tells the bot to take the high, low, or average of the specified value tracker's data set.
(Optional when "add-take-profit" and "add-stop" are used together) A decimal value (ie. 2.5) that represents the risk-reward ratio that should be used to calculate the take profit price based on the stop price.
(Optional with trigger market orders) "true" or "false"; Retry all trigger market orders (stop, take-profit, and trailing-stop) until they get filled. See this article for more details.
* Not available on all exchanges.
(Optional) A unique identifier for a group of alerts. You can use any alphanumeric name that you like as long as it's 50 characters or less. Example: "strategy-b-group"
(Required with alert-group-id) The integer number which identifies a particular alert within a group of alerts. The value must be between 1 and 9 (a max of 9 alerts per group). Example: "2"
(Required with alert-group-id) The integer number which identifies the total number of alerts in a particular group of alerts. The value must be between 1 and 9 (a max of 9 alerts per group). Example: "3"
(Required with alert-group-id) The time window in which all alerts need to be received relative to each other. It can be specified in minutes, hours, days, or weeks. (ie. "15 minutes", "2 hours", "3 days", "1 week"...etc)
(Optional with alert-group-id) When included with an alert that is part of an alert group, this value is used to compare the current value in the alert to the value from the previous alert that came through with the same alert-number. This value can only contain one of the following: ">" (greater than) or "<" (less than) or ">=" (greater than or equal to) or "<=" (less than or equal to) or "==" (equal to).
(Required with alert-trigger-if) When using the alert-trigger-if feature, the alert-value parameter is required to capture a decimal value. This could be any value on your indicator or chart (ie. the price, a moving average, RSI value...etc) In most cases, you will use a TradingView variable here to dynamically set the value in the alert message (ie. "{{plot_3}}")
(Optional with alert-group-id) A list of alert numbers within an alert group that should have the logical OR operator applied. Each number should be separated by hyphens. Example: "2-4-5". Each alert that is part of the OR group should include the "or-group" parameter with the same value.
(Optional) A unique identifier or name for the Value Tracker Dataset. You can use any alphanumeric name that you like as long as it's 50 characters or less. Example: "BTC 1HR ATR Stop"
(Required with value-tracker-id) The numeric value that you would like to track as a dataset over the last X alerts or candles.
(Required with value-tracker-id) This is an integer number that represents the number of alerts or candles that you want to keep as a dataset to reference later from other alerts. For example, if you want to reference the swing low over the last 50 candles from other alerts, set track-last-x-alerts to 50 and configure your Value Tracker Alert to trigger on every candle close. The max number of alerts that you can track in one dataset is 100.
Checking the Order Status
Once your alert has been triggered, follow these steps:
Check the Alert Logs tab under My Account for any errors or additional information.
Log in to your exchange account and confirm that the order has been placed.
