Facts:

My employer‘s 401(k) has zero automated trading (eg limit orders) or notification features in it.

I have substantially increased my employers stock holdings in my 401k ever since the 2014 oil and gas downturn. I thought this elevated allocation percentage would be a year or two not 7 years.

My employer’s stock value is nearing a price where I want to sell some of it.

I want to remain employed so there is a 0% chance I’m going to identify my employer or my target stock price

Goal: I want an automatic notification or text on my iPhone the moment the stock price hits my target so I can login to my 401k and execute a sale

Question: what is the simplest way to get an automatic notification or text on my iPhone?

---

Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

Does that specific stock have a Ticker Symbol on the exchange? If so, you can use nearly any stock trading app and setup an alert, Yahoo Finance for a free one or if you have a Fidelity or Schwab account any of those would work as well. They have the tools right on their site.

Just to note that your 401(k) is most likely not going to have live market trading available. Indeed, I’d be shocked if it did. Best, you will be able to do is pick the day your order trades but not the moment or the price.

quote:

Originally posted by jcsabolt2:
Does that specific stock have a Ticker Symbol on the exchange?

Of course. I would not have asked the question if they were not a publicly traded company.

quote:

Originally posted by jcsabolt2:
If so, you can use nearly any stock trading app and setup an alert,

Not really. I have the Vanguard app but since I hold 0% in my Vanguard account I can’t find a way to set a notification in it. Vanguard’s app is no better than watching apple’s stock app all day long (I have a busy job and wish to remain employed so that’s not an option).

I’m a buy & hold investor with periodic rebalances. I go many, many years without conventional trading and then it’s never in my 401k.

EDIT:

quote:

Originally posted by jcsabolt2:
Yahoo Finance for a free one

I dismissed this too soon. It’s buried in the iPhone notifications not in the app itself. I now have my desired notification set for my target price.

fidelity, who holds my 401k and stuff has a sell aspect which will automatically execute once the determined price has been hit

Place a Limit Order, at a pre-determines the sale price, which you specify. You can specify the Limit/sale price and set it up as a Day Limit, enabling you to assess the daily trend(s) and enter a new order daily, or GTC (Good 'til Cancelled), which is a set it and forget it option, if you're confident/positive as to exactly what price you'd like to sell you shares. There may also be a GTD (Good 'til Date) option, where you specify the expiration date/time frame during which the Limit Order remains valid.

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:
Place a Limit Order, at a pre-determines the sale price, which you specify. You can specify the Limit/sale price and set it up as a Day Limit, enabling you to assess the daily trend(s) and enter a new order daily, or GTC (Good 'til Cancelled), which is a set it and forget it option, if you're confident/positive as to exactly what price you'd like to sell you shares. There may also be a GTD (Good 'til Date) option, where you specify the expiration date/time frame during which the Limit Order remains valid.

Zero automated trading features in 401k which means no limit orders

quote:

Question: what is the simplest way to get an automatic notification or text on my iPhone?

Pay someone.

quote:

Originally posted by snwghst:
fidelity, who holds my 401k and stuff has a sell aspect which will automatically execute once the determined price has been hit

That would be nice but my employers 401k provider does not have this option which is why I’m looking for a notification option.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:

quote:

Question: what is the simplest way to get an automatic notification or text on my iPhone?

Pay someone.

No thanks. There has to be something free but easy.

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
Question: what is the simplest way to get an automatic notification or text on my iPhone?

There are several free iPhone apps that will do what you want. I can't speak to which are the best- haven't used any, as I don't need to (Schwab has its own stuff) but in your shoes, I'd pick a couple of the apps, set them all up to give alerts, and go nuts.

This being the age of privacy, I'd be sensitive to what data the apps want you to share. There may be some that are less invasive of privacy and those would be what I went with.

Yahoo Finance has at least some brand name recognition, I might throw that in the mix for consideration, assuming they don't want a host of personal info.

Take a look at yahoo finance

It has what you are looking for for free.

Takes a while to learn the system.

quote:

Originally posted by sig2392:
Take a look at yahoo finance

It has what you are looking for for free.

Takes a while to learn the system.

I dismissed Yahoo Finance too soon. It’s buried in the iPhone notifications not in the app itself. I now have my desired notification set for my target price.

quote:

Originally posted by joel9507:
This being the age of privacy, I'd be sensitive to what data the apps want you to share. There may be some that are less invasive of privacy and those would be what I went with.

Yahoo Finance has at least some brand name recognition, I might throw that in the mix for consideration, assuming they don't want a host of personal info.

So far, Zero personal info to add app and setup price notification

Let us know how it works out.

quote:

Originally posted by snwghst:
fidelity, who holds my 401k and stuff has a sell aspect which will automatically execute once the determined price has been hit

Fidelty might issue the sell order immediately, but if mutual funds- they transact at the day's closing price.

ThinkorSwim allows you to do "paper" trading so you do not need to link your actual brokerage account to it. It is a robust platform with tons of analytics and alert tools.

StockTwits is a social media discussion platform. You can create watch lists and set up alerts as well.

You can also open any of the free trading apps like Webull or Robinhood and set up watch lists and alerts.

You can also set up Google Alerts for pretty much anything.

You could set up Robinhood account and buy one share of the stock then set a limit order on it. It will alert you when it executes. I'm sure there are better or free options, but I know for a fact that way will work.

Sign up for a free tradingview.com account and you can get email alerts about the price. I never used the app for the phone but you can get notifications on that too. The basic/free plan allows for 1 alarm/alert.

Tatortodd, to second what x0225095 said? The way mine works is they do the buy/sell at the end of the day using an mean of the aggregate price fo the day's trading values. Or something like that.

quote:

Originally posted by radinski:
Tatortodd, to second what x0225095 said? The way mine works is they do the buy/sell at the end of the day using an mean of the aggregate price fo the day's trading values. Or something like that.

Agreed, it's virtually impossible for a 401(k) plan to have an immediate execution feature included. Getting notices throughout the day may be meaningless.

So your stock tracking feature is really the alarm on your phone. Set it for 3:45 Eastern each weekday, check price, if it's at level you're comfortable will stay where you want for 15 minutes to close enter sell order.

Heck, even that may not be accurate if you purchased this as part of an employee stock purchase plan and not just individual stock in your 401(k), but you indicated it's an individual holding in the plan.