Flashing Stock Alert Application

This Project was submitted to Parallax by Mike Gold.

Introduction

In the stock market, a stock price can go for or against you at any time. Traders need to be wary of price changes so that they don't lose a lot of money. One method of warning the trader about price fluctuations is a flashing alert on the screen. However, let's say for argument's sake that the trader is not at his or her computer. What if the trader is across the room behind the computer screen? How will he or she know that the alert has been tripped? One way to show an alert is to sound an alarm from the PC and turn up the volume on the sound card. On the other hand, this technique may piss off all the other traders (and you don't want to piss off a trader). Another idea is to extend the visible signal of the stock alert beyond the computer screen. Thus we have created the flashing stock alert.

Design

The flashing stock alert consists of two components: (1) The .NET solution that allows traders to set alerts in their favorite PC program Microsoft Excel. (2) The Parallax Basic Stamp II Circuit containing the Light Emitting Diode (LED) flashers used to alert the user. Here is how the application works: The trader types in the symbols of the stocks s/he wishes to monitor in the stocks column of the excel spreadsheet. The prices of these stocks are then brought into the price column from a website that provides quotes and is updated every second. The quote is also checked against a high and low value in the columns adjacent to the price column provided by the trader. If the price exceeds the high value column or falls below the low value column a signal is sent over the serial port to the BASIC Stamp Board to alert the trader with a flashing LED.

For more information on this customer application check out the post.