EXPERT NAME – Trailing Stop Loss
FOR USE ON: Forex
DOWNLOAD EXPERT PACK – CLICK HERE
EVOLVED FROM STRATEGY – See description below
The Trailing Stop Expert Advisor for MT4
As traders, we have many strategies and tools that we can use to assist us with protecting our profits (and of course, our capital) and limiting any potential loss. One such tool is the Trailing Stop Loss, and we highly recommend that you utilize this tool to incrementally lock in your profits as your trade progresses.
A Trailing Stop Loss, sometimes called simply a Trail Stop, is a Stop Loss order that is placed above or below the market price in the same way as a standard Stop Loss. However, in contrast to a usually fixed or static Stop Loss, your Trailing Stop is continuously adjusted as the market price of your chosen asset moves in your favor.
Your broker will allow you to place an automatic Trailing Stop Loss Order that will automatically trail the prevailing price by an amount that you specify. Hence in the case of a BUY, if price moves up 10 pips, your Trail Stop will also move up by 10 pips or whatever amount you have pre-set. For every 10 pips that price moves, you are therefore locking in another 10 pips of guaranteed profit.
If price stops moving up, or reverses then your Trail Stop ceases moving up and stays in the same place. If price reverses enough so as to meet and trigger your Trail Stop then you are automatically exited out of the trade. However, the good thing about the Trail Stop is having moved up somewhat, you have exited with some of your profits intact.
Benefits of Setting a Trailing Stop Loss
– Removes indecision about when to exit your trade.
– Takes emotion out of the equation and enables you to stick with your predefined trading rules
– There is no ceiling on your profits. If price continues to rise, so does your Trail Stop
– In the case of an automatic Trail Stop there is no need to ‘babysit’ your trades. Set your parameters and walk away.
– It’s flexible.. You can adjust your Stop Loss at any time during the trade.
You can also manage your Trail Stop manually. Here’s how..
Manual Trail Stop Management
The first thing you will want to do is adjust your Stop Loss to breakeven (your entry price) as soon as possible. At this point you can relax as you have protected your capital and you are in your trade for zero risk.
The point at which you adjust your Stop Loss to your breakeven point is entirely up to you, but a good rule of thumb is to do so when your trade reaches +20 pips. That way there is a comfortable enough gap between the current price and your newly adjusted Stop Loss. This reduces your chances of getting stopped out of the trade too early before it’s had a chance to progress.
Again the point at which you continue to move your Stop Loss to start trailing the current market price is up to you but we suggest moving it up (in the case of a BUY) 10 pips for every 10 pip gain.
One of three things will happen to exit the trade.
– you’ll either exit the trade manually, or
– price will hit your Take Profit, or
– price will reverse to the extent that it hits your Trail Stop level and exits your trade.
One of the most difficult things in trading is to know when to exit the trade and take your hard earned profit off the table. Inevitably, we can exit prematurely and we can exit too late, with both potentially having an adverse effect on our bottom line. Using a Trail Stop is therefore a smart decision for you to walk away with good profits.
INPUTS
This Trailing Stop Expert has been designed to help you in the following situations:
• Modify trailing stop loss on all open trades on the current account
• Modify trailing stop loss on all profiting open trades on the current account
• Modify trailing stop loss on all trades on the attached chart
• Modify trailing stop loss on all profiting trades on the attached chart
• Close all trades and take specified profit when entire account is in profit
AllPositions – When set to true this will modify all open trades on the current
account. When set to false it will only modify trades on the attached
chart.
ProfitTrailing – When set to true this will only modify trades that are in profit.
When set to false it will modify trades in profit as well as trades
that are in loss.
TrailingStop – Number of PIPS for your trailing stop loss. Minimum is 5.
ProfitTarget – When set to 0 the Expert works as a trailing stop loss expert. When a value higher than 0 is given, existing stop losses are cleared from your account and the expert will close all trades and take the desired profit when it has been reached on the account. Takes total profit including swap. When attached to chart and a ProfitTarget is set, details are displayed on chart.
TrailingStep – Checks and modifies trailing stop loss after this number of pip movements.
UseSound – When set to true this will enable the expert sound file. This makes a sound when an adjustment is made.
NameFileSound – The sound file used. This can be changed to any sound file that you have available on your computer.
To add the expert advisor to your MT4:
- Download the expert advisor – You can download HERE
- Extract the zip folder using any extractor, such as WinZip or 7zip
- Open your MT4
- Go to File > Open Data Folder > MQL4 > Experts
- Place the Slick Trade – Trailing Stop.ex4 file in the Experts folder
- Place the files in the Include folder
- Place the files in the Library folder
- Place the indicators in the Indicators folder
- Place the templates in the Templates folder
- Refresh your MT4 or close and re-open
- Open a chart on any timeframe
- Add the Trailing Stop expert to your chart
- Right click > Expert Advisor > Properties
- Input the settings you wish to have for the Trailing Stop
- Leave your MT4 running and collect some pips!
***Note – make sure you have AutoTrading turned on and that the EA has a smiley face in the upper right hand corner!
***All expert advisors will be updated on the final Sunday of each month. You can download their updates HERE – Please be sure to download them to continue their use
If you have not requested a license for the use of Expert Advisors, please do so by submitting a support ticket.***