Analyse Trading
Available on Google Play
Install

Trailing stop

A trailing stop is a stop loss that automatically follows your position as price moves in your favour, at a set distance.

If you buy EUR/USD with a 30-pip trailing stop, your stop moves up 1 pip every time price makes a new high 1 pip above the previous one. If price falls back, the stop stays put. It never moves backwards.

It lets you ride a trend while locking in part of the profit. Its weakness: too short a distance takes you out on a simple pullback, too wide a distance gives back much of the gain.

On MetaTrader, the trailing stop runs on the platform side: it stops trailing if your terminal is closed. Some traders prefer to move it by hand below each new swing low, or based on the ATR.

The full lessonOrder types: market, limit, stop, OCO and trailing stopMarket, limit, stop, stop-limit, OCO, trailing stop, take profit and stop loss orders: how each trading order type works and when you should use each one.← Full glossary