I Built a Telegram Bot That Tells Me When My Stocks Are “Cheap” — Built on 50-Year-Old Math
Summary
A Telegram bot named Stocker monitors a user-defined watchlist of stock tickers, employing classic technical indicators to alert users only when "meaningful" market changes occur. Built on a personal PC without servers or webhooks, Stocker utilizes Bollinger Bands (1980s), the Relative Strength Index (RSI, 1978), a Bandwidth Squeeze detector (2001), and an SMA-200 trend filter (2007) to identify actionable asset states. It fetches data via yfinance by default, operating through a monitor loop that checks prices every 30 minutes during market hours and sends notifications via pyTelegramBotAPI polling. The bot aims to reduce constant brokerage app checks by signaling opportune moments for long-term investors, such as "SOFT_BUY" or "STRONG_BUY" verdicts based on combined indicator signals.
Key takeaway
For long-term investors aiming to deploy marginal capital with greater discipline, building a personal market monitoring bot like Stocker can significantly reduce impulsive trading. Your custom bot, using indicators such as Bollinger Bands and RSI, can alert you to genuinely actionable market states, preventing constant brokerage app checks. This approach helps maintain long-term investing discipline by only prompting action when the market offers a meaningful opportunity, rather than reacting to minor fluctuations.
Key insights
A personal Telegram bot can automate stock monitoring using classic technical indicators to signal actionable market states, fostering disciplined long-term investing.
Principles
- Volatility normalizes "expensive" or "cheap" asset valuations.
- Combining distinct indicators enhances signal reliability.
- Long-term trend filters prevent "falling knife" buy signals.
Method
A Python process monitors a watchlist, fetches prices, computes Bollinger Bands, RSI, SMA-200, and Squeeze, then notifies via Telegram polling only upon actionable state changes, persisting state locally.
In practice
- Configure a Telegram bot using @BotFather and @userinfobot.
- Deploy the Python bot locally with git clone and uv.
- Integrate yfinance for free, 15-minute delayed market data.
Topics
- Telegram Bot
- Technical Analysis
- Financial Indicators
- Stock Market Monitoring
- Python Programming
- Long-term Investing
Code references
Best for: Software Engineer, Data Scientist, AI Student
Related on AIssential
Editorial summary, takeaway, and curation by AIssential. Original article published by Towards AI - Medium.