Sunday, March 16, 2008

Trailing Stops

A Trailing Stop is an active stop loss that keeps a set distance away from the current market price and updates according to the market. This is best used in a moving market that is going in the direction the trader wants and the trader wishes to guarantee the profits made. This can be best illustrated by an example.
Say a trader enters into a long 200,000 USD/CHF position at 1.2430 and set a stop order at 1.2380 with a trailing stop of 50 pips. The maximum the trader can lose is 50 pips as above, however the stop loss will automatically update itself as the market moves. For instance, if the market moves to 1.2450 then the stop loss would update itself to 1.2400, always keeping 50 pips from the maximum rate; the stop loss will keep updating itself until it triggers or the original trade is closed.

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