Stop loss triggered outside candle price

Hello everybody, currently testing myself with a demo account.
Few days ago I had an open position, short on AUDJPI. I adjusted the SL after a while to follow the falling price. The SL was triggered during the night at a price that is outside the range shown on MT for that period of time (significantly outside…). I was explained that the SL is triggered by the ask price and sometimes when the market is slow, the spread can be very high. Still, if my SL was executed at a level never reached by any bid in that period, shouldn’t it be covered by the candle for that time interval? Looks a bit of a cheat as the price kept falling…
Any comment/suggestion is apreciated.
Cheers
Z

I feel for you, this sort of issue is a hard experience and its a tough lesson.

However, there are certain factors you have to keep in mind before you launch your lawyers against a broker.

Firstly, no matter what bid/ask range MT shows, the broker is not obliged to abide by this in their own quotes. Secondly, they are not obliged to abide by the bid/ask range shown on their own charts. The actual quote on which they will act by executing orders etc. is their own live price quotation. If you watch a broker’s live chart against their live quotes you will see that the quotes move more and faster than the charts. This can make a difference between an order being triggered and not triggered.

But maybe most importantly, your order was so close to the live “price” that a wider bid/ask spread could potentially have triggered it at this time in the market daily cycle on this particular pair. You must question whether this is a viable way to trade.

I see… is there a way to avoid this? Something like SL triggered by executed price and closed immediately after at market price? … or using avalue mid way between bid and ask?
At that time the spread was >0.7 …(for a veeery short period…) is it realistic?

This may happen due to spread widening which is something normal during certain periods or events (session open/session close/weekends/news/holidays/etc…)
That’s correct, SELL positions open with BID price and close with ASK price
while BUY positions open with ASK and close with BID
Also note that MT4/5 charts are based on the bid price by default
So I would recommend you to add the Ask line on your charts to better track prices

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OK, thanks for the clarification. I thought that the price shown was the last executed …

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