Stop Adjustments and Trailing Stops

A stop does not have to stay where it started. Stop adjustments move your stop target on a schedule you define, and trailing stops tighten automatically as the trade earns profit.

Stop adjustments

Stop Adjustments let the bot change the stop target based on the current time. Enable them in the Trade Stop section of the bot editor, then add rows pairing a time of day with the stop target you want in force from that time on. This is a common way to give a trade room early in the session and run a tighter stop into the close.

Stop Adjustments on Days in Trade or Days to Expiration chooses which day each adjustment schedule applies to, so multi-day trades can run different stop schedules on day one than on expiration day. Stop Adjustments by Time holds the schedule itself: the times of day the bot adjusts the stop target and the corresponding targets.

Build a schedule

Each schedule is a set of rows. Click Add Adjustment to add one, then fill in the Adjustment Time and the stop target that takes effect from that time on. A row can also flip its Disable Stops switch instead of setting a new target, which turns the stop off entirely from that time forward, useful when you want a stop through the volatile open but none into a quiet close.

A worked example for a two-day trade measured In Trade: on trade day 1, no adjustments, so the base stop from the Trade Stop section applies all day. On trade day 2, one row at 10:30 tightens the stop target, and a second row at 15:00 tightens it again into the close. At any moment the stop in force is simply the most recent row that has passed, or the base stop before the first row.

Trailing stops

Trailing Stops close a trade based on a stop amount that adjusts upward as the trade becomes more profitable. Instead of measuring from your entry, the stop follows the best profit the position has seen and protects part of it. Three settings define the behavior: Trail Calculated By picks the unit (percent profit or Option Dollars), Profit Trigger for Trailing Stop arms the trail once profit crosses it, and Trailing Stop Allowance is how much profit may be given back from the best level before the trade stops out.

A quick example with percentages: a 30 percent Profit Trigger and a 10 percent Allowance arm the trail once profit reaches 30 percent, and if the best profit seen reaches 35 percent, the trade stops when profit drops below 25 percent.

The trail follows the contracts that are still open, so closing part of a trade restarts the trail for the contracts that remain. The full walkthrough, including worked examples of how a partial close changes what the trail measures, lives in its own article: Trailing Stops in Depth.

Trailing stop speed

Trailing Stop Speed works like the regular Stop Speed setting: it controls the check interval, the number of hits required to stop out, and how long limit orders work before being replaced with fresh quotes and more slippage. Choose a preset from PDQ through Sloth, or pick Custom to tune the trigger checks and order handling yourself. For trailing stops, Custom allows up to 60 seconds between checks in Check Interval After First Hit.

Using both together

Adjustments and trails solve different problems. Stop adjustments are deterministic: at a given time on a given day, your stop is exactly where the schedule says. Trailing stops are reactive: they only tighten when the trade has produced profit. Many traders schedule a loose overnight stop with adjustments and let a trailing stop capture the upside on the days the trade works.

Both features build on the base stop covered in Stop Losses Explained, trailing behavior is explored fully in Trailing Stops in Depth, and every field in the section is documented in Bot Settings: Trade Stop, Trailing Stops, and Launch on Stop.