Introducing Trailing Stop Loss

IT’S HERE!

During the past month or so, those of you who have been trading in Virtual portfolio mode could already use this feature and see what it can do, and now we’re happy to introduce it to Real portfolio mode as well.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s go back to basics and answer some essential questions.

What is Trailing Stop Loss?

A trailing stop loss is designed to protect gains by enabling a trade to remain open and continue to profit as long as the price is moving in the right direction, but closing the trade if the price changes direction.

For example. You open a Buy EUR/USD trade at 1.1000, set the Stop Loss rate at 1.0900 (100 pips Stop Loss), and tick the Trailing Stop Loss check box.

For each pip that the EUR/USD moves in your favour (e.g 1.1001) the SL level will update accordingly (e.g to 1.0901). If it moves another 50 pips in your direction (1.1051) the SL will be updated as well (1.0951).

If the EUR/USD then moves lower, for instance to 1.1020, the SL level will not change, and will stay at 1.0951. Only once it moves above the highest point it has been at (1.1051) the SL continues to update. So if the EUR/USD goes to 1.1120, your SL will update to 1.1020 and effectively lock in 20 pips of profit.

How to set a Trailing Stop Loss?

When opening a trade and setting a certain Stop Loss level, simply tick the Trailing Stop Loss check box. Once you tick the Trailing Stop Loss box, the distance between the trade opening rate and your set Stop Loss rate will be automatically locked in. Please note that at this point, trailing stop loss only works on trades you opened yourself, so the Copy Stop Loss mechanism remains the same.

How to set the TSL

 

You can enable or disable TSL at any point by editing the trade’s settings in your open trades screen.

Note that this feature is available on new eToro only. For those of you who still haven’t fully transitioned from the old trader apps, now is the time to do so!

Some Other Important Changes

Changes to minimum copy limitation
We’ve recently updated copy limitations in the aim of optimizing your copy experience. As such, you will no longer be able to copy a trader if the average copied trade size in your copy relationship is lower than $1.

Since the minimum copied trade size is $1, this measure will prevent you from copying traders whose trades you won’t be able to copy, therefore providing you with a better and more synchronized copy experience.

For example:

Trader A has $10K in his realized equity and he opens most of his trades with $50, which is 0.5% of his realized equity. Trader B wishes to copy him with only $100, which makes the average trade size $0.5. Since the average trade size is less than $1 we can assume that most of the copied trades will fail to open. With the new limitation, Trader B will not be able to open this copy and the amount will update to $200, so that the average trade size will be the minimal $1. It is then up to Trader B to decide whether he/she still wishes to copy the Trader A with the updated amount.

Deposit directly from the open trade pop up

In case you want to open a trade with an amount larger than your available to trade funds, you will be prompted to deposit directly from the open trade pop up. You will then be able to select the deposit amount, and once you finish the deposit process, you will be returned to the trade pop up, where will be able to finish setting up your trade.

This feature will make it easier for you to top up your portfolio just in time to make that crucial trade.

All that’s left for you to do is login to your account and check out the new features.

We always value your feedback and consider it to be a crucial part of our development process, so let us know what you think!