Understanding Ticker Placeholders in Automation

Understanding how signal placeholders work is fundamental to successful trading automation. This guide explains how ticker transformation happens between TradingView strategies and broker execution, ensuring your automated signals execute correctly.

The Placeholder System

What Are Placeholders

Placeholders are variables in your alert messages that get replaced with actual values when the alert fires. The most common placeholder, {{ticker}}, automatically inserts the symbol of the chart that triggered the alert.

When you create an alert on a Tesla chart using {{ticker}}, the placeholder gets replaced with "TSLA" when the alert message sends to TradersPost. This automatic substitution enables you to use the same alert configuration across multiple instruments.

Strategy Position Placeholders

TradingView strategies provide additional placeholders that communicate strategy state. The {{strategy.position_size}} placeholder reveals whether the strategy is currently long, short, or flat.

When position size is positive, the strategy is long. When negative, it's short. When zero, no position is open. This information enables dynamic message construction that adapts to strategy state.

Signal Translation Process

From Strategy to Alert

When your TradingView strategy generates a signal, it passes information about the intended trade to the alert system. The strategy tester knows whether it wants to go long, short, or exit a position.

The alert message template uses placeholders to capture this intent. These placeholders get evaluated using the strategy's current state when the alert fires.

From Alert to TradersPost

Once placeholders are replaced with actual values, the complete message sends via webhook to TradersPost. TradersPost receives a fully-formed instruction like:

` { "ticker": "TSLA", "action": "buy", "sentiment": "bullish", "quantity": 10 } `

This transformed message contains no placeholders, only concrete values that TradersPost can execute.

From TradersPost to Broker

TradersPost receives the transformed message, validates it against your strategy configuration, calculates position sizing if needed, and sends the appropriate order to your connected broker.

Position Size Translation

Strategy Contract Size

TradingView strategies operate in contracts. If your strategy settings specify position size of 10, every trade uses 10 contracts. The strategy displays this clearly in the strategy tester panel.

Quantity Placeholder Usage

The {{strategy.order.contracts}} placeholder communicates how many contracts the strategy wants to trade. This can be useful when you want signal quantity to control position size rather than subscription settings.

However, be cautious with this approach, as the contract size in TradingView may not match the position sizing appropriate for your live account.

Message Field Requirements

Ticker Field

Always include a ticker field to specify which instrument to trade. While TradersPost can infer the ticker from your subscription settings in some cases, explicitly including it prevents ambiguity.

Action Field

The action field tells TradersPost what to do: buy, sell, or exit. Make sure this field accurately reflects your strategy's intent using appropriate placeholder logic.

Sentiment Field

The sentiment field provides additional context about trade direction. Use "bullish" for long positions, "bearish" for short positions, and "flat" for exits to no position.

Optional Fields

Additional fields like quantity, price, and order type can enhance your automation but aren't always necessary. TradersPost can use subscription settings to fill in missing details.

Testing Your Placeholders

Using Send Request Feature

TradersPost's webhook page includes a Send Request feature that lets you manually trigger test signals. Use this to verify your placeholder logic works correctly before relying on it in live trading.

Send test requests with different ticker values and verify that TradersPost interprets your message as intended. Check the signal log to see how the message was processed.

Verifying Transformation

After creating alerts with placeholders, trigger a test alert and check what message actually arrived at TradersPost. The signal details page shows the exact JSON received, confirming your placeholders transformed correctly.

Troubleshooting Common Issues

Wrong Direction Trades

If your automation takes the opposite direction from intended, check your action placeholder logic. Ensure the conditional statement correctly maps positive position sizes to buy and negative to sell (or vice versa based on your strategy logic).

Missing Ticker Information

If orders get rejected due to missing ticker information, verify that {{ticker}} appears in your message template and that your TradingView chart displays the exact symbol your broker recognizes.

Quantity Mismatches

When executed position sizes don't match expectations, determine whether your subscription is set to use signal quantity or subscription position sizing. Mismatched settings create confusion between intended and actual position sizes.

Key Takeaways

Placeholder understanding is essential for reliable trading automation. The transformation from strategy signal to executed order involves multiple stages where placeholders get replaced with actual values based on strategy state and chart context.

Always use the strategy payload format when automating TradingView strategies, verify your placeholder logic through testing, and monitor your signal logs to confirm transformations happen as expected. Proper placeholder configuration ensures your automation executes trades that match your strategy's intentions across all market conditions and instruments.