Trailing stops

[Jason H. 53]

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.

[Robert H 453]

Great post, Jason. Thank you for taking the time to share with us.

[P K 1]

Thank you, this is very helpful to newer traders, like me, who are still getting the grips of everything DAS can do. Please update with your coding for the hotkey if you get the chance, I want to try it out in the sim.

[BrianC 0]

Excellent! Thank you!

[idosunmu 0]

Link to hotkey is not working 

[Robert H 453]

31 minutes ago, idosunmu said:

Link to hotkey is not working 

Fixed.

[Chinner 13]

hey guys...if you get an error saying "Stop price is invalid"

 Go to your Setup menu and select Trading Settings and make sure the "Enable Fast Stop Limit Order" field is unchecked. The Fast Stop Limit Order will automatically treat all your stop orders as Stop Limit order.

[David 1]

This won't work for me.  When i press sell (for a trailing stop on a long order), a sell order gets placed right at the current price every time instead of the trailing amount i entered (for example .30).

[Eric 6]

Hello, 

I think I am having the same problem as David. No matter what I program a stop to be in the hotkeys in DAS Trader Pro (Using Simulator), the value entered in on the price field in the montage will override it.There will be a green sign above the montage showing a correctly-calculated stop price, but then it will just execute whatever was already in the field for the price from the montage. This means that if I have a hotkey for one stop to StopPrice=AvgCost-3.00 and one at StopPrice=AvgCost-0.50, that they both will be for the same amount, which is whatever was in the montage's GUI field for the price.

My current attempt at a stop-loss is this standard example from Robert H, only tinkering with the StopPrice amount so that a correctly-priced stop would stand out. Market order for a buy at -$3.00 stop-loss (same issue whether SELL = Send or Load):

ROUTE=STOP; StopType=Market; StopPrice=AvgCost-3.00; Share=Pos; TIF=Day+; SELL=Load;

 

Edited April 15, 2019 by Eric

[Joseph-Ngoc-Tri Huynh 0]

Hi

Is there a script for setting a trailing stop 0.25$ below AvgCost?

I have problem with : CXL ALLSYMB;ROUTE=STOP;StopType=Trailing;TrailPrice=AvgCost-0.25;Share=Pos;TIF=DAY+;SELL=Send;

Please help.

Thx

[soheilmalek 0]

Hi,

When I am in a winning trade and reached all my targets and too far from my break even price - which not happens often - I want to make last partial and leave the rest trailing, so I can freely focus on other stuff. Problem with fixed Trigger Price on trailing price is the Trigger Price for $100 share is not suitable for $20 share. Either it might be lower than my Break Even or very close to Last price and stop out very quickly. The following Hotkey will partial 20% and set Trailing Stop at Break Even price + $0.02 for slippage. Tested it in IB Simulator for both Short and Long. If I hit the hotkey before the trade gets into winning condition, it will execute the partial but DAS will give an error message since the Trigger Price will be negative.

For Long:
CXL ALLSYMB;ROUTE=LIMIT;Price=Bid-0.02;Share=Pos*0.2;TIF=DAY+;SELL=Send;Price=Ask-AvgCost-0.02;TriggerOrder=RT:STOP STOPTYPE:TRAILING StopPrice:Price TrailPrice=Round2 ACT:SELL QTY:POS TIF:DAY+

 

For Short:
CXL ALLSYMB;ROUTE=LIMIT;Price=Ask+0.02;Share=Pos*0.2;TIF=DAY+;BUY=Send;Price=AvgCost-Bid-0.02; TriggerOrder=RT:STOP STOPTYPE:TRAILING StopPrice:Price TrailPrice=Round2 ACT:BUY QTY:POS TIF:DAY+

 

Please let me know your thoughts about this Hotkey and partial method.

Thanks

 

[Michael McCausland 6]

I have tried these two in my real account with limited success.  In SIM, it seems to work perfectly.  Have you had any other feedback regarding these trailing stops?  I am using IB on DAS