Every order in eTrader starts in one of two places: the New Order ticket, or the chart itself. The ticket is the full form. The chart is faster once you know it. Both send the same order to your broker's server, and both show you the margin the order needs before you commit to it.
Open the ticket
Press New Order in the toolbar, or choose an instrument in Market Watch and pick New Order from its menu. On the phone, tap the instrument and then the Trade button. The ticket opens on the instrument you had selected, and the symbol picker at the top lets you change it.
The ticket has two modes, side by side at the top:
- Market Execution fills at the current price the moment you press Buy or Sell.
- Pending Order waits on the server until the market reaches the price you set.
Under the mode you set the volume in lots. The ticket reads the instrument's minimum lot and its step from the broker, so a volume the broker cannot fill is refused before it is sent.
A market order
Type the lots, add a stop loss and a take profit if you want them, and press Buy or Sell. The two buttons carry the live ask and bid so you can see the spread you are paying. The order is filled at the price the server has when it arrives, which in a fast market can differ slightly from the one you saw.
Before you press either button, look at the two lines under the volume. Required Margin is what this order locks up. Free Margin After is what you will have left to hold it and to open anything else. If the second number is small or negative, reduce the lots. A position that leaves you with no free margin is the first one to be closed when the market moves against you.
A pending order
Switch the ticket to Pending Order and choose the type:
| Type | Sits | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Buy Limit | below the market | you want to buy a dip |
| Sell Limit | above the market | you want to sell a rally |
| Buy Stop | above the market | you want to buy a breakout |
| Sell Stop | below the market | you want to sell a breakdown |
Type the price, the lots, and any stop loss and take profit, then press Place Pending Order. The order appears in the Pending Orders list and as a line on the chart. It stays on the server until it fills or you cancel it, so the terminal does not have to stay open.
To change a pending order later, open it from the list or double click its line and choose Modify Order. To remove it, Cancel Order.
Straight on the chart
The chart toolbar has a pending order tool and a price alert tool. Pick the pending order tool, click the chart at the price you want, and a ticket opens with that price already filled in. Once the order exists, its line is yours to drag. Drag it to a new price and the order is modified on the server when you let go.
The type follows the price. Drag a buy limit above the market and it becomes a buy stop. Drag a sell stop above the market and it becomes a sell limit. You never have to cancel and re-enter an order because you changed your mind about the level.
The same is true of an open position. Its entry, its stop loss and its take profit are drawn as lines, and each one drags. Move the stop loss line and the new stop is sent the moment you release it. The label on the line shows the distance in pips and what that distance is worth in your account currency, so you can set a stop by the money at risk rather than by guessing the pips.
Stop loss and take profit
You can add them on the ticket when you open the order, or afterwards from Edit Position. Either way they are stored on the server with the position and close it without the terminal's help.
Two shortcuts are worth learning:
- Set SL to Entry Price moves the stop loss to the price you opened at, so the trade can no longer lose. It is in the position's menu.
- Trailing Distance makes the stop follow the price at a fixed distance, moving only in your favour. Set it in pips on the position.
A stop loss or take profit that sits too close to the current price is refused. The broker sets that minimum distance per instrument, and the ticket tells you when you are inside it.
More than one take profit
A position can carry a ladder of up to four take profit levels. Open the position, press Add Level, and give each level a price and the lots it should close. The levels are drawn on the chart as a labelled ladder, and each one drags on its own. Press Save Levels and the ladder is on the server. When the price reaches a level, that slice closes and the rest of the position keeps running with its stop loss in place.
Closing
From the Positions list or the position's line on the chart:
- Close Position closes all of it at the market.
- Partial Close asks for a volume and closes only that much.
- Close All Positions, in the Positions menu, flattens the whole account in one confirmation.
Every close shows in History with its open and close price, its swap and commission if the broker charges them, and its profit. On the web and on the Mac you can export any date range as a CSV file from the History tab.
One-click trading
By default every order asks for a confirmation, and every close does too. If you want the Buy and Sell buttons on the chart to fire at once, open Settings, choose Enable One-Click Trading and accept the warning. On the phone the same switch is called Trade with a Single Tap. Leave it off while you are learning the terminal. A stray tap with it on is a real order.