Trailing Stop
When you open a position, you can place a stop loss to limit your losses if the position becomes unprofitable. However, if the position becomes profitable, you may want to adjust your stop loss to a break-even level.
You can do this manually, but you can also do it automatically using a trailing stop. This is useful, as you don't have to watch the price.
To place a trailing stop:
- Open the 'Terminal' window
- Right-click on the position to launch the context menu
- Select 'Trailing Stop'
- Choose the number of points you want between the stop loss level and the price
You can only set one trailing stop for each open position
Figure 1. Placing a Trailing Stop
Once you have placed the trailing stop, the MetaTrader terminal will track the current price and do the following:
- Wait until your position goes into profit by the number of points you specified in your trailing stop
- Issue a stop loss order at the level specified in the trailing stop
- Continue to raise the stop loss as the price rises
- Record all stop loss changes in the terminal journal
The stop loss isn't adjusted downwards if the price falls, so your profits are locked in.
You can disable existing trailing stops by doing the following:
- Open the 'Terminal' window
- Right-click on the position to launch the context menu
- Select 'Trailing Stop'
- Select 'None' to disable the trailing stop for the selected position
- Select 'Delete All' to disable all trailing stops
Note that trailing stops are managed by the MetaTrader terminal, not by our servers. If you turn off the terminal, the trailing stops will no longer work, and the last stop loss orders that were sent to our servers will remain in place.
