Confusion with Stop Loss and Take Profit

Hello Everyone,

I think I must have missed something in the stop loss/take profit section because MT4 is giving me the following error when I set a:

  • Sell Order
  • Set the Stop Loss to be above my enter price
  • Set the Take Profit to be below my enter price

– This is how I understand a sell order, I am “selling high” and “buying low” so I want the TP to be below my enter price and my SL to be above my enter price


As you can see from the image, I looking to enter the trade at 1.62343 with a sell order with a TP at 1.62338 and a SL at 1.62349.

But FXCM MT4 is saying its an invalid SL TP.

Am I missing something here? Am I looking at the wrong graph (there is the blue graph above the red on the left side of the image)

I’m thinking that the blue line is the offer price and the pink line is the bid price. You will sell at the bid, but buy at the offer, so if you put your stop below the offer price it would automatically get filled. That’s why you’re getting the error. Your stop needs to be above the current offer.

it’s most likely this, but if you were using the right chart, some brokers dont allow you to make a 5 pip sl, as they have required minimums of like 10 pips.

your SL and TP are way too close to the current bid-offer prices. jwlee also mentioned about a 10-pip minimum, you should employ that or at least read the broker’s guide to get more information.
if you want to place tight TP and SL, you need to use a non-MT4 platform.