As I understand it, for platforms that support a trailing stop the amount you set, lets say 10 pips, essentially becomes your stop-loss setting until the market moves in your favor. For a lot of trades, a 10-pip stop loss doesn’t provide much breathing room, and if you hope to benefit from a trailing stop, setting it much more than 15 pips dramatically reduces its effectiveness in “typical” market conditions.
Why is there not a hybrid stop loss, which lets you set an initial stop loss of 25-30 and a trailing stop of 10. The initial stop loss setting would only apply if the market moves against your position, while the trailing stop only applies if the market moves in your favor. This way, you give the trade some breathing space, and you can lock in profit in 10 pip increments (or whatever increment you select).
I use Oanda and it does not support trailing stops at all. Maybe this feature already exists on some platform…