This transcript is intended only to assist automated search tools.  This transcript is not a replacement for the auto-visual presentation.  If you are reading this, you have not installed Flash on your computer correctly.

Let's talk about alerts vs filters. Let's use SMAs as an example.

Here's a quick, idealistic picture. This is a made up stock chart with an SMA. Here's the same stock with two SMAs.

See where these two SMAs cross. That's an alert. It's an instantaneous event. We notify you of this ASAP.

See this region where the stock price is above the SMA? And this region where it's below the SMA? These are filters. You can watch stocks like this for a long time using our top list or other alerts.

You can do something similar with two SMAs. Use a filter to see where the faster SMA is above the slower one. Or when the slower SMA is above the faster one.

These are clearly related. When the faster SMA is above the slower SMA, that's a way of identifying an up trend. When the faster SMA is below the slower SMA, that's a way of saying the stock price is dropping. The alert said there was a change between the directions. The filter shows the current state.

Notice that these two areas look the same. Here the stock is moving up faster, and the difference between the SMA and the price is bigger. You can use different filter values to distinguish between these two cases. The alert could not be that precise because we reported it right away. Because the filter lasts longer, it could give us more details.