What is Alert Trigger Orders (ATO)?

Alert Trigger Orders (ATO) is a feature that automatically places a linked basket of orders on the exchange when a Kite alert is triggered. In ATO, market orders are placed with market price protection. To learn more about Kite alerts and market price protection, see What are Kite alerts and how to use them? and What is market price protection in Alert Triggers Order (ATO)?

For instance, If a client wants to buy a NIFTY 100 ETF, like Zerodha’s TOP100CASE, when the NIFTY 100 index drops by 10% or more, ATO can be used to set an alert and automatically place a buy order for TOP100CASE. When the index falls by 10%, the alert will be triggered, and a buy order for the TOP100CASE ETF will be automatically placed.

To use ATO, follow these steps:

1. Hover over an instrument and click on More icon.
2. Click on Create alert.
3. The default alert name will be the instrument's name. Enter a different name if preferred.
4. Click on Alert Triggers Order (ATO).
5. Select the data point, instrument, mathematical operator, and price. Price can be entered manually or increased or decreased by the arrows. The price can also be set as a percentage of the last price. To learn more about setting Kite alerts, see What are Kite alerts and how to use them?
6. Search for the instrument to be added to the basket and click on B (Buy), S (Sell) or +.
7. Enter the parameters in the order window, such as price and order type and click on Add to basket. Up to 20 instruments can be added to the basket to be linked to an alert.
8. Modify the quantity or the price. To select the market price, click on the options icon, then on the pencil icon, and select Market.
9. Click on Create.

Alerts or ATOs can also be created for a particular instrument by visiting kite.zerodha.com/orders/alerts and then clicking on New alert.

The order type, whether buy or sell, can be changed without opening the order window by clicking on B (Buy) or S (Sell). Multiple instruments can be deleted by selecting the box next to the instrument name or by selecting the box beside Type and clicking on Delete to remove all instruments from the basket.

The quantity and price can be edited without opening the order window by clicking on the up or down arrows or manually entering the values.

Alerts will be disabled automatically if there’s a corporate action for the instrument that changes the price by more than 2%, such as extraordinary dividends, bonuses, splits, or rights issues. To learn more, see Why are the Kite alerts disabled?

The Alerts section displays all alerts, whether enabled or disabled. The types of alerts are displayed as SIMPLE or ATO , and they can be modified, enabled, disabled, or deleted at any point until they are triggered from the Alerts section. Kite alerts have a validity period of 365 days and will be automatically disabled after this period unless triggered or manually disabled earlier.

Individual instruments can be deleted, duplicated, or edited by clicking on the options icon. Additionally, the order sequence can be changed by dragging and dropping. The Margin required will be different based on the sequence of the individual orders, while the Margin blocked after execution remains the same.

For F&O strategies, placing buy option orders before future or short/writing option orders is advisable. By doing so, the F&O strategy will be executed with the least margin requirement, as displayed below:

By default, orders have a Day validity and are canceled if not executed by the end of the trading day. This validity can be changed from the order window. To learn more, see What does Day, Immediate and Minutes Validity mean?

Email alerts: Clients will receive push and email notifications upon the triggering and execution of an ATO. Once an ATO is triggered and the order is placed, its status can be checked via email or the Alerts section. To learn more, see How will clients be notified if a Kite alert is triggered?

ATOs can be identified on the order history page by the bell icon.

ATO is currently available only on Kite web and will soon be available on Kite app as well. If an ATO is created on the web, it will be visible on the app as a simple alert. Additionally, if an ATO is modified on the Kite app, it will be converted into a simple alert.