Modifying orders

Beginner Questions
1

Say hello to a newborn in the world of trading!

… And on to the questions.

Let’s say I go long on 0.900 SL @ 0.850 and TP @ 0.950

It reaches 0.945 and I’m startin to chicken out, so… could I simply modify my order to SL @ 0.940 and raise the TP-level to 0.960 or would this, for some reason be very stupid?

By setting my SL to 0.940 I’m guaranteeing a gain of 40 pips? Am I wrong or right? Are there any side effects of modifying like this? Will my order now be useless?

If so, how do I exit efficiently in the middle of a trade?

Hopefully spelling errors are excused because of my origin.
(The kingdom of Volvo and meatballs)

Cheers

// Aleksandr

2

You can do what you like with your order. (In a nice way of course.)

On some platforms you can put a trailing stop loss in, which
if the market backs up on you it takes the profit.

Also when you are in a winning trade you could decide to remove
your T/P & if you are by your computer just trail the stop manually.

There are many ways to manage a trade.

Just try various ideas on your platform of choice.

Edited to say just noticed your other post, Oanda
do not have a trailing stop facility so you will need to do it manually.

(The kingdom of Volvo and meatballs)

PS Is that not the land of ABBA?

PPS Disclaimer: Sorry Rhody, check with your broker & platform to see what
they will allow. :lol:

3

Ah yep, managed to figure it all out after a while. Thanks!

Edited to say just noticed your other post, Oanda
do not have a trailing stop facility so you will need to do it manually.

Can you explain more exactly what a “trailing stop facility” is?

PS Is that not the land of ABBA?

Well… yeah, it is. I’m not a big fan of ABBA though so I tend not to mention them. :smiley:

4

Can you explain more exactly what a “trailing stop facility” is?

A trailing stop is a function on some platforms, eg metatrader 4,
where you can set a stop limit behind your trade which follows
the trade up or down, for arguments sake 15 pips.

Now if the trade should stall or reverse then the stop loss is
activated & you do not end up with a loss.

In long term trading the trick is to place a trailing stop close enough
to cover a break in the opposite direction of your trade, but not close
enough to be taken out by a retrace & the upwards (or downwards) trend continuing.

Used mostly if you cannot be close to your computer, or if you
just like to set a trade then ignore it.

5

and your still logged in to the web site.
Are most brokers like that with mq4.
i like trailing stops but i worry if i lose connection or computer shuts down that i wont have that trailing stop working.
I’m sure you know the answer or someone does.
i know you can alway put a regular stop loss which i would do , but is there brokers that honor your trailing stop when your not logged on.

6

With metatrader 4 if you lose connection it leaves the stop loss
where it had got to. If while you have lost your connection the
price goes up 50 pips (for a long trailing stop) then reverses the stop
loss is triggered where it was left when you lost the connection.

So for a 25 pips S/L you would have lost 25 pips, but as the S/L
cannot be triggered until you are in profit at least you would not
have made a complete loss.

Which is the case with brokers who do not have this facility.

As far as honoring the trailing stop how would they know you had
a trailing stop working as it’s on your computer. The best thing to do
as usual is to speak to the broker in question.