Place stop-loss on a stop order?

how can i put a stop-loss that is triggered automatically when my prices reach my stop which opens a position?

preferabbly, this would be so that when theres a breakout, it would lockin profit, or breakeven stop loss once the position is opened?

im sounding really confusing so heres what i did t oday.

aud/jpy

place a long stop order at around price X.XX

I comeback about an hour later and see that a breakout has occurred, and my position had been opened in the money.

I then placed a stop-loss to lock in the profit.

My question is, how do i place the stop-loss intially when i place the long stop order, so that I won’t manually have to do this once the position is in the money? better yet, is there a service/trading platform, that will alert me once a trigger has occured?

also, if I put a long stop order as well as a short stop order? is it possible for both positions to be open in the pair?

this would work very well with breakouts, i dont get punished for being wrong, if im wrong i can cancel the order. This will limit my losses significantly if done right, but correct me if im wrong.

To Yari123 :

To solve the first part of your question you could use what is called a trailing stop order - maybe your trading platform has provision for such an order.

Personally, i find the trailing stop to be inefficient and i think then there is no other way out of the problem except to do it manually as you have been doing. There is no harm in this, it just means you have to watch the screen and be patient. After all, we do have to do [U]something [/U]for our money - its not so easy that we can sleep on the job.

As far as triggers go, i would have thought that most good platforms provide this facility in the form of instant emails or sms on your mobile phone. My platform, GFT, certainly provides the trigger facility, called alarms.

The last part of your question is a little confusing for me but I will try to help. Your platform should have various types of orders…stop, limit, contingent etc. One of these orders is OCO, meaning “one cancels another”.
In this case you place your order and set a stop at one end and a limit (take profit) at the other end. Depending on which way the price action goes, one of the working orders gets triggered and then the other one is automatically cancelled.

OCO’s are an excellent protection against computer breakdown and the possibility of a margin call.

Ultimately there is a limit to what you can do on a trading platform and, if you are daytrading, i personally think that manual operations are still the best. After all, it is nice to see your money being made, even though there is a dangerous greed factor involved.

Finally, I humbly stand to be corrected in this post by more experienced posters.

Kind regards,
Tymen Wortel,
Perth, Western Australia.

ah trailing stop. silly me. thats what I was looking for.

I dont see any greed factor? do you mean that I’m being lazy and not doing it myself haha.

but this is great, i just set the targets and do something else, and when alarm rings, i can lock in profit, or cut my losses with stop loss. and OCO yes is a great way except it would suck when it crosses 1 pip above my target and suddenly moves the other way. i would have to put in a trailing stop.

im looking at the 1 hr chart with 200 SMA and basically im wondering what percentage should my trailing stop be? what is the usual fluctuations in jpy crosses? i especially like aud/jpy because it goes breaks up and down and more opportunitise.

thanks tymen1