how to lock profits in mt5
mohanrao620: new to forex, new to mt5. got a noob question, if someone can help it will be very helpful.
we place an (buy) order.. it moves, say 50 pips in our direction, and we want to lock the profit at 30 pips.
i.e. we want to sell when it falls to 30 pips, and if it goes higher we want to hold it.. mind you, i am not asking about taking partial profits.. just looking for something opposite of 'trailing stop loss', trailing profits.
What you just described is called a "Trailing Stop-Loss" - it is not called a "trailing profit". It trails the Maximum Favorable Excursion (i.e. the maximum profit) and locks it in to protect the position for that case that the price falls back to that level, at which point the order is closed.
hi, guys.
new to forex, new to mt5.
got a noob question, if someone can help it will be very helpful.
we place an (buy) order.. it moves, say 50 pips in our direction, and we want to lock the profit at 30 pips.
i.e. we want to sell when it falls to 30 pips, and if it goes higher we want to hold it.. mind you, i am not asking about taking partial profits.. just looking for something opposite of 'trailing stop loss', trailing profits.
any help/suggestions would be appreciated.
If you want to lock the 30 pips profit when you reach 50 pips in your favour, its called break even and its applied only once for each trade.
But if you want to keep your profits always locked 20 pips behind the maximum point reached, this is a trailing stop loss.
Just wanted to correct you there on the break-even - a break even is when you set the protection at 0 pips (or just slightly higher to cover commission and swaps), and hence why it is called "break-even" - neither a win nor a loss!
A trailing stop does not have to continuously trail the price. It can very well work in steps or even just once to protect the profit!
Just wanted to correct you there on the break-even - a break even is when you set the protection at 0 pips (or just slightly higher to cover commission and swaps), and hence why it is called "break-even" - neither a win nor a loss!
A trailing stop does not have to continuously trail the price. It can very well work in steps or even just once to protect the profit!
I know Fernardo, but a break even can be set higher than the 0 level (technically and not strictly according to its terminology) and a trailing stop loss its not trailing if it doesn't trail.
So its a wording game, isn't it?
Even though it is in fact a "wording" game, words have meaning in order for language to be effective in communicating ideas. And so, by definition, by terminology, when saying that a stop is moved to "break-even", then it is meant that you move it to the level of "zero loss, zero gain", not to a 30 pip gain, which is a "profit", not "break-even".
I know that this is just semantics and that I may be sounding pedantic, but it is important to use correct terminology, otherwise we will just have what is currently happening with the OP, where he is calling a trailing stop by the wrong name of "trailing profit"!
Even though it is in fact a "wording" game, words have meaning in order for language to be effective in communicating ideas. And so, by definition, by terminology, when saying that a stop is moved to "break-even", then it is meant that you move it to the level of "zero loss, zero gain", not to a 30 pip gain, which is a "profit", not "break-even".
I know that this is just semantics and that I may be sounding pedantic, but it is important to use correct terminology, otherwise we will just have what is currently happening with the OP, where he is calling a trailing stop by the wrong name of "trailing profit"!
So, can a trailing stop loss only used once?
Is it a trailing stop loss then?
Yes! There are literally hundreds of variations of trailing stops - fixed, dynamic, continuous, stepped, fractal, swing points, percentage, ... and the list goes on and on. In fact, a "break-even" is also a type of "trailing-stop" that is just set at the break-even level, once the MFE has reached a certain level.
thanks for the replies, guys. i think i could not explain it well.
i am looking for a feature where we can lock profits without closing a position, or taking partial profits. and where we can keep moving the lock profit level further and further when the position goes in our favor. at no point we will be closing the position on our own, it will be closed automatically only when the level falls to the lock profit level.
in the example given in op, we place an (buy) order, it moves 50 pips in our direction, we move the lock profit to 30 points manually, then pips move another 50 points in our favour, now it's at 100 pips total in our favor, so we lock profits at 80 pips manually, and it goes like that.
hope it's clear now what i am looking for.
It trails the Maximum Favorable Excursion (i.e. the maximum profit) and locks it in to protect the position for that case that the price falls back to that level, at which point the order is closed.
i think this is something close to what i am looking for.
1) can we do this in mt5, or we have to get some EA?
2) instead of it trailing the 'maximum favorable excursion' AUTOMATICALLY, it is possible to trail manually?
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hi, guys.
new to forex, new to mt5.
got a noob question, if someone can help it will be very helpful.
we place an (buy) order.. it moves, say 50 pips in our direction, and we want to lock the profit at 30 pips.
i.e. we want to sell when it falls to 30 pips, and if it goes higher we want to hold it.. mind you, i am not asking about taking partial profits.. just looking for something opposite of 'trailing stop loss', trailing profits.
any help/suggestions would be appreciated.