I have been adding trailing stops to my orders in MetaTrader and they don’t appear on my charts, and also don’t appear in the terminal. Why is this? Is one of my settings wrong? 
Hi Dan,
In MT4, trailing stops won’t appear until price has moved positively the number of pips as your trailing stop. So if your trailing stop is set for 20 pips, price has to have moved +20 pips first, and then it will kick in and establish itself at the price you entered at. For this reason, it is always wise to set a hardstop as well when you place the order.
Hope that helps 
A stoploss will become a trailing stop if it has been set. A trailing stop will kick in as a stoploss when the limit has been reached
Thank you!
Hi,
Trailing stops are good only in specific situations, mainly when you suspect a strong and sharp movement is about to happen (like after an important announcement or so), but you have no idea how far will it go. Normally it will end in closing positions in the wrong time, sometimes even when the position could win with the original s/l.
correct, I’m using it on a breakout system
Are you using a broker with 5-digit quotes instead of 4-digit?
In this case you might need to add a zero to the trailing stop value (50 pips = 500 pips).
You mean 50 pips = 500 points for MT4 “speak.” :5:
i have been through a situation where my trailing stop didt work and when i asked my broker said i didt place the stop loss that 's why it didt work. Is my broker correct?
Do we have to place a stop loss first and then trailing stop or trailing stop will work even without stop loss???
Not sure about that, as I always first just put a SL in place and then adjust a trailing SL to it.
But as the trailing SL will disappear as soon as the client is closed, this could’ve caused your issue.
BTW: any known EA to prevent disconnection causing the trailing SL to be lost? :31:
… Or is every EA always deactivated as I log off?!
I did a Google search as to why my trailing stop loss wasn’t working and found this thread.
Just going by SwwetPip’s comment above, I just want to clarify something on my current order…
I am short EUR/JPY with a 4040 point stop loss. I have watched the trade go in my favour and expected the stop loss to follow as soon as there was a profit. I now think I am wrong, and the stop loss will stay at it’s hard stop position until the trade has moved 4040 points in my favour?
If this is the case, how can I set a trailing stop loss that will immediately follow on making profit?
Mark.
i have one doubt about trailing stop…if i set trailing stop then do i need to open my terminal or i can close mt mt4 and can do whatever ?..thanks…
I just had this happen too (and would have had a nice profit when I woke up!) but realised I slept the PC for the night. It seems trailing stops are CLIENT-SIDE NOT SERVER-SIDE, meaning it’s your mt4 terminal that executes the trailing stop (updates the server with the new price as price moves) and not the brokers server.
It seems brokers only support a fixed SL on the server, not a trailing stop!
So you need to keep your terminal open and logged in (and PC on) for a trailing stop to work.
Hi sweetpip would you know what the different colour small price boxes are in the terminal on the stoploss box ? sometimes its red others yellow, I should know this really I suppose ,I cant find anything on the net, thanks in anticipation.