Launch a New Trade After a Stop

Last updated July 17, 2026

Getting stopped out does not have to end your trading day. Launch on Stop lets a bot start a new trade, on itself or on another bot, whenever a stop closes all or any portion of its trade.

What Launch on Stop does

Find the Launch New Trade After Stop section in the bot editor. With Launch on Stop enabled, the bot reacts to its own stop fills by launching a fresh trade. The launch fires when a stop closes the whole trade or any part of it, so partial stops trigger it too.

Common uses are re-entering the same setup after a shakeout, flipping to a different structure after a directional stop, or stepping down to a smaller position for the rest of the day.

A concrete run-through: Bot A sells a put spread, and at 10:14 its stop closes the trade. Bot A's Launch on Stop points at Bot B with a quantity of 1 and a 2 minute delay. At 10:16 the system starts opening Bot B's trade using Bot B's own legs, sizing rules, exits, and stops, at 1 contract regardless of what Bot B would normally size. While the delay runs, the pending launch is visible on the Trading Dashboard, where a Cancel Pending Launch control lets you call it off.

The Launch New Trade After Stop block enabled, pointing at another bot with a quantity of 1 and a 2 minute delay
The example chain: after a stop, launch the selected bot at 1 contract after a 2 minute delay.

Choosing what launches

Launch on Stop Bot Selection picks which bot opens the new trade. Choose the same bot to re-enter its own setup, or any other bot in your account to hand off to a different configuration. The launched bot opens its trade using its own leg, entry, and exit settings.

  If the bot you selected is currently disabled, the selection list flags it with a DISABLED label so you can spot chains that will not fire.

Launch on Stop targets must be standalone bots. The picker only lists bots that are not part of a Multi-Entry bot, so you cannot point a launch at a Multi-Entry bot itself or at one of its entries; a Multi-Entry bot cannot open a trade directly, which is why it and its entries are left out. This is the opposite of Bot Dependencies, where a Multi-Entry bot can be picked as a dependency target.

Launch on Stop Quantity

Launch on Stop Quantity sets how many contracts the launched trade opens, independent of the stopped trade's size. Size it deliberately: a full-size re-entry keeps your original exposure, while a reduced quantity limits how much a string of stops can compound.

Launch on Stop Delay

Launch on Stop Delay waits a set amount of time after the stop is recorded before the system starts opening the new trade. Choices run from No delay through 15 minutes, in 10 second steps up to 3 minutes and coarser steps beyond. A short delay lets the market settle after the move that stopped you out instead of re-entering into the same momentum.

  Changed your mind during the delay window? Disable the bot or pause autotrading before the delay expires and the launch is canceled.

No Launch After Time

No Launch After Time is an optional cutoff for the whole feature, set in U.S. market (Eastern) time. Toggle it to Enabled and pick a time of day between 9:00:00 AM and 4:00 PM; choosing the 4 o'clock hour locks the minutes and seconds to :00, the market close. Leave the toggle off and the bot always launches.

The cutoff works on the projected launch time, not the stop itself: the stop's fill time plus your Launch on Stop Delay. If that projected time is later than the cutoff, the launch is skipped and the skip is recorded in the bot's activity log; a launch projected to land exactly at the cutoff still fires. This keeps a late-day stop from chaining into a re-entry with only minutes left in the session.

Keeping chains under control

Each launched trade is a normal trade for the launched bot, including its own stop settings. If that bot also has Launch on Stop enabled, a chain can continue through multiple stops. Walk the worst case before you enable it: three bots chained at full size means three full losses are possible in one session if the market keeps running the wrong way. Stepping quantities down along the chain, or pointing the last link at a bot with no launch of its own, puts a floor under the day. Your stop settings are covered in Stop Losses Explained, every field in the section is in Bot Settings: Trade Stop, and you can watch every launch in your bot activity logs.