Trailing stop

A trailing stop is a stop loss that follows the price at a fixed distance while the trade moves your way, and stays put when it moves against you. It never moves back. You set the distance once, on an open position, and your Broker's Server moves the stop for you on every price change, whether a terminal is open or not.

How the stop moves

The Server keeps the stop exactly one trailing distance behind the price the position would close at:

• On a buy, the stop is kept at the bid minus the distance. When the bid rises, the stop rises with it. When the bid falls, the stop stays where it is.
• On a sell, the stop is kept at the ask plus the distance. When the ask falls, the stop falls with it. When the ask rises, the stop stays.

When the price comes back to the stop, the position closes like any stop loss: at the market price of that moment, recorded in History with Closed By reading Stop Loss.

The stop only moves while your instrument has a live price. When the market is closed or prices pause, it waits, and it carries on from the next live price.

Switching it on

A trailing stop belongs to an open position. It cannot be set on a pending order or in the New Order ticket, so open the position first.

1. In the web terminal, go to the Trade tab and press Edit on the position.
2. Tick Trailing Stop.
3. Type the distance in Trailing Distance.
4. Press Save.

On the iPhone and Android apps, tap Modify on the position card. The field is called Trailing Distance, as on the web, and it shows Off when no trail is set. Type the distance and save.

Writing the distance

The distance is a price difference, written the way the instrument is quoted. It is not a number of pips and not an amount of money. The web field's own example, 0.00050, is five pips on a pair quoted to five decimals such as EURUSD. On an instrument quoted to two decimals, a distance of 0.50 is half a unit of its price.

The quickest way to get it right is to measure it on the chart. Pick the measuring tool, the ruler icon in the chart toolbar, and drag from the price to where you would want the stop. Its label shows the move in price and in pips, and the price figure is what goes in the field.

Too small a distance and the normal back and forth of the market, plus the spread, closes the trade almost at once. There is no right number. It depends on how far your instrument usually moves on the timeframe you trade.

What happens the moment you save

The trail takes effect straight away. The Server works out the trailing level from the current price and compares it with your stop:

• If the position has no stop loss, the trailing level becomes its stop loss.
• If your stop is further away than the trailing level, the stop jumps up to the trailing level at once.
• If your stop is already closer than the trailing level, it stays, and starts to move once the price has travelled far enough for the trail to overtake it.

So a trail tighter than your existing stop tightens the stop immediately. Check the stop loss field after saving.

On the chart and in the list

A trailed stop is labelled TR on the chart instead of SL, followed by its price and its distance from your entry in pips and money. In the Trade tab, the Type column shows a small T after BUY or SELL.

You can still drag the stop line. The trail stays on. Drag the stop closer to the price and it holds there until the trail catches up. Drag it further away than the trailing distance and the Server pulls it straight back to the trailing level on the next price change.

Switching it off

In the web terminal, open Edit, untick Trailing Stop and press Save. In the phone apps, empty the Trailing Distance field and save. The stop loss stays at the last price the trail moved it to. It becomes a normal stop that you can move or remove.

For a fixed stop moved by hand, or the one-step move to your entry price, see Stop loss and take profit. The order ticket itself is covered in Placing orders.