You've heard us say it before..."Trade-Ideas™ can help you make better trading decisions." But how, exactly, does it do this? The key is the automation of the trade identification process. Trade-Ideas removes the necessity of you filtering through mountains of trade data to find opportunities that meet your trading style. And the best part is it's FREE and available to all ScottradeELITE customers. So, don't worry about trying it out to see if you like it - there are no strings attached.

But how do I get started? Trade-Ideas is a powerful tool that can be intimidating for new users. To access Trade-Ideas, simply click on the Trade-Ideas button in the upper right corner. After you read, accept and submit a user agreement, you will be able to access Trade-Ideas. The best place to start is with a sample alert we have already created for you. You can view a list of the sample alerts by clicking on the Alert Lists button and then select Samples. The name of the alert should give you an idea about what the alert is looking for in the upper right corner of your ScottradeELITE home page.

I selected a sample alert, but what does all this information mean? Trade-Ideas is designed to provide information to you in a visible, easy-to-use format. With a little practice you can glance at an alert and know exactly what is going on with that stock.

• Age - Provides a graphical representation of how old the alert is. As the alert grows older, the black color grows and the blue color shrinks.
  
  
• Time - A time stamp of when the alert was triggered.
  
  
• Icon - A graphical representation of the alert that has been triggered. If you ever have any questions about the alert, simply click on the icon for a detailed explanation.
  
  
• Description - Explains the alert in words. If the description is long and does not fit in the entire Description column, a complete description can be found in the grey bar at the bottom of the Trade-Ideas window.
  
  
• # - The number of times the alert has been triggered that day. A 1 means this is the first time this alert has been triggered for that particular symbol today. A 24 would mean this alert has been triggered 24 times for a particular symbol today.
  
  
• Relative Volume - Represents the volume behind the stock that the alert was triggered. 1 represents the stock is trading at historically normal volume. 2.50 means the stock is trading at 2 � times the volume it normally does when this alert was triggered.
  
  
• Quality - Displays the number of shares that triggered an alert.
  
  
• Weekly Chart - A graphical look at the stock's performance for the week. This is not meant to be your main charting - but a quick look at the trend of the stock.
  
  
• Daily Chart - A graphical look at the stock's performance for the day. This is not meant to be your main charting - but a quick look at the trend of the stock.

I'm getting too much information at once! Depending on the sample alert you select, it is possible that too many opportunities are being streamed into your Trade-Ideas window - which can lead you to become overwhelmed and frustrated. You have a couple options to make the data more manageable. At the top of the Trade-Ideas window there is a settings button. The settings button allows you to tailor an alert to your specific trading style. If you are not sure how to customize your alert, here are a couple of suggestions:

• Create a symbol list in the Quote Grid window and then set Trade-Ideas to watch only the stocks on that list. By default Trade-Ideas is watching the entire market. Creating your own list will limit the number of stocks the alerts are tracking and slow down the amount of information.
  
  
• Set additional filters. On the filters tab in the Configure window, you will find optional filters. These filters limit the symbols you see. For example, you can say that you don't want to see stocks below 10 dollars or above 60 dollars through the Min and Max price filter. Additionally you can say you only want to look at stocks that trade at a certain amount of volume such as 500,000 shares per day, or only stocks trading on higher volume than they normally trade.