Leaderboard

Trailing stops are a great tool for a trend trade when the price is moving slowly but inexorably in one direction for a longish period of time. A trailing stop acts as a moving stop loss to protect your profits while also allowing you to secure near the maximum profits of the trend when it reverses. I started using them in SIM today because I recognized that I tend to jump out of trends too early, leaving profits on the table. You can create a trailing stop on both the long and short side in the same way: 1. In your montage, set the order type to STOP 2. In the "Stop Type" drop down, select "Trailing" 3. Just below the "Stop Type" drop-down, the third field over from the left is labeled "Trailer Price", set the value to the amount you want the stop to move behind the price. 4a. If you're setting a stop for a long position, click "SELL" - You should now see an order sitting in your order window 4b. If you're setting a stop for a short position, click "BUY" - You should now see an order sitting in your order window A trailing stop always stays a set value below the current price, so for example, if the price is 4.20 and you set a Trailer Price of .20 on a long position your stop loss will be at 4.00. If the price goes up the trailing stop price moves with it, but only in one direction. So for example, if the 4.20 stock moved up to 4.30, the trailing stop would would move to 4.10. If the price subsequently moved down to 4.15, your trailing stop price will stay at 4.10. The trailing stop price will always be set based on the current price, so be careful to look at the current price and movement on the 1 minute chart, the stop will trigger the moment the price tics back to the stop price. For example, if you see the 1 minute candles varying about 10 cents per minute on the trend, a .05 trailer price will probably trigger too early. Make sure you're setting your trailer price to a value that protects your profits without prematurely closing your position when the trend would likely continue. I will update this thread with real chart examples. I also have a hotkey but I want to test it in SIM Monday before I post it here. Edit: How to create a hotkey to set a trailing stop.