Trailing Stop

[world3000]

A Trailing Stop moves the Stop Loss level once it’s “in the green” by the defined Trailing Stop Level. What I'm looking for is a Trailing Stop that moves as soon as the price moves in the right direction by 1 pip. Example:
Price: 1.5050. Stop Loss: 1.5000. Trailing Stop: 50 pips. Now price moves to 1.5051, Stop Loss moves to 1.5001 etc. Any ideas for MT4? Thanks in advance.

[phil838]

Originally Posted by world3000

A Trailing Stop moves the Stop Loss level once it’s “in the green” by the defined Trailing Stop Level. What I'm looking for is a Trailing Stop that moves as soon as the price moves in the right direction by 1 pip. Example:
Price: 1.5050. Stop Loss: 1.5000. Trailing Stop: 50 pips. Now price moves to 1.5051, Stop Loss moves to 1.5001 etc. Any ideas for MT4? Thanks in advance.

Isn't that exactly what trailing stops do, or am I misunderstanding what you're saying?

[o990l6mh]

Originally Posted by phil838

Isn't that exactly what trailing stops do, or am I misunderstanding what you're saying?

If you set a trailing stop in MT4 at 50 pips, it doesn't start moving until you're 50 pips in profit as opposed to Oanda where it starts moving as soon as you're 1 pip in profit.

I'm sure there's custom script or expert somewhere that mimics Oanda's style but I haven't looked for it.

[ThePhoenix]

Originally Posted by world3000

A Trailing Stop moves the Stop Loss level once it’s “in the green” by the defined Trailing Stop Level. What I'm looking for is a Trailing Stop that moves as soon as the price moves in the right direction by 1 pip. Example:
Price: 1.5050. Stop Loss: 1.5000. Trailing Stop: 50 pips. Now price moves to 1.5051, Stop Loss moves to 1.5001 etc. Any ideas for MT4? Thanks in advance.

I think you will have to with an ECN like mb trading to do that. Most market maker brokers don't do trailing stops that small. MB allows you to set TS and even postive SL right at price and inbetween spreads I believe.

On a side note, I had the same thought when I started.

With trailing Stops you will almost always find that once hit they will move back and exit you. They rarely work in your favor, because of price occilliation.

Instead of a trailing stop you can move the SL postive as soon as possible. At my broker that is 1 postive + 3 pips away from price. So, for one pip postive have to wait for +4 to set SL postive.

Please note the moving the SL postive is NOT the same thing as a trailing automatic stop. You get better results by moving a SL postive.

I still like moving my SL postive. But, if you do it that early in a trade, that is as soon as you possible can, you'll actually end up hurting your positve expectancy.

What you'll find is that you'll have a lot of little, ittty bitty winners, and then a couple of trades that just reverse and hit your real SL, and they will wipe out the itty bitty winners, and then you have wasted a whole lot of time. The same thing, but worse happens with trailing stops, because price has to hit your trailing stop first and only locks in small amount, or doesn't hit it and locks in nothing and hits your real SL. With manually moving your SL postive, you have locked in something at your discretion, and it can be as small as 1 pip or just break even.

Moving a SL postive is best done, IMO, first at a 1:1 ratio. That is you risked 20 pips, so move it forward at 20, then keep moving it forward from there as you see fit. You can use every ratio after that, or support and resistance and fib to move the SL postive.

Moving it forward as soon as possible IS a good idea though if you are not sure of a trade.

Sometimes you get lucky and price just motors your way and you can keep following it by manully moving the SL forward.

If you want to take the risk out of a trade and have a chance to just let it run and see what it does, the best way is to set the SL to break even as soon as you can and NOT move it postive to give price breathing room. (you may get couple pips slippage and come out slightly negative though, if you lose) I will do just this on trades I have expectations for, but can't be at my screen to babysit and watch the behavior of price and decide if a drawdown is just normal occilliation before profit.

[daydreamer65]

Originally Posted by world3000

A Trailing Stop moves the Stop Loss level once it’s “in the green” by the defined Trailing Stop Level. What I'm looking for is a Trailing Stop that moves as soon as the price moves in the right direction by 1 pip. Example:
Price: 1.5050. Stop Loss: 1.5000. Trailing Stop: 50 pips. Now price moves to 1.5051, Stop Loss moves to 1.5001 etc. Any ideas for MT4? Thanks in advance.

All of the MT4 brokers I have been with only allow a TS to
start after 10 pips profit has been reached then they increment
ever pip from there. So 11 pips = 1 pip profit
12 pips = 2 pips profit etc.
up to your TP.

I have also not come across an EA which will do the job either.

Caution the TS also does not work if you lose connection.

[world3000]

Thank you ThePhoenix for your in-depth answer to my question. Happy 4th of July everybody!

[ThePhoenix]

Originally Posted by daydreamer65

All of the MT4 brokers I have been with only allow a TS to
start after 10 pips profit has been reached then they increment
ever pip from there. So 11 pips = 1 pip profit
12 pips = 2 pips profit etc.
up to your TP.

I have also not come across an EA which will do the job either.

Caution the TS also does not work if you lose connection.

Excellent point and another reason why a SL put postive is better. SL's are stored on the brokers server, trailing stop are on your computer.

[pips2u]

I think using a trailing stop will make us lose our trades in the long run. This is because our profit target is uncertain and yet we have a certain stop loss. With a trailing stop, when the trade is right, our pip gain is still much less than our stop loss. Which means one wrong trade (hitting a stop loss) can undo our 5 or six right trades. It's a bad idea to have an uncertain profit target and certain stop loss.

[phil838]

Originally Posted by o990l6mh

If you set a trailing stop in MT4 at 50 pips, it doesn't start moving until you're 50 pips in profit as opposed to Oanda where it starts moving as soon as you're 1 pip in profit.

I'm sure there's custom script or expert somewhere that mimics Oanda's style but I haven't looked for it.

Ah, that would explain my confusion then!

There are about 5 different trailing stop EA's here Index of /_MT4_Experts

I haven't tested any of them, but a casual glance at the code suggests at least a couple of them do what you're needing.

[tymen1]

Originally Posted by ThePhoenix

With trailing Stops .................................. They rarely work in your favor, because of price occilliation.

...............................

You get better results by moving a SL postive.

.........................................


Moving it forward as soon as possible IS a good idea though if you are not sure of a trade.

...............................

If you want to take the risk out of a trade and have a chance to just let it run and see what it does, the best way is to set the SL to break even as soon as you can ................................

I agree with ThePhoenix's post here, especially the above points!!

I too have found that trailing stops can backfire on you.
Setting stops manually via a break even stop is a better procedure.