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What Are Market Orders? (Part II)

Stop Loss Orders: If the market moves against your position, stop loss orders are used to limit losses. If you don’t use stop loss orders, you are leaving yourself at the mercy of the markets. A dangerous proposition! Stop loss orders are critical to your trading survival. The traditional stop loss order does just that. It stops losses by closing out an open position that is losing money. Understand the forex market.

Get good forex training.If you are short, your stop loss order would be to buy but at a higher price than the current market price. Stop loss orders are on the other side of the take profit orders but in the same direction. If you are long, your stop loss order would be to sell but at a lower price than the current market price.

Trailing Stop Loss Orders: The trailing stop order adjusts the order rate as the market price moves but only in the direction of your trade. A trailing stop loss order is a stop loss order that you set at a fixed number of pips from your entry rate.Understand candlestick patterns.

Suppose you are long on EUR/USD at 1.2654. You set the trailing stop loss order at 30 pips. The stop will initially become active at 1.2654-30=1.2624. If the EUR/USD rate goes up to 1.2674, the stop adjusts itself and will become active at 1.244. The trailing stop loss order continues to adjust itself higher as the market moves higher.

Your trailing stop will be 30 pips below the top when the market puts in the top. The trailing stop loss order will be triggered and your open position closed if the market ever goes down by 30 pips. So in our example, you are long at 1.2654. You set the trailing stop loss at 30 pips and it became active at 1.2624.

If the market never ticks up instead goes straight down, you will be stopped out at 1.2624. If the market first rises to 1.2664 and then declines 40 pips, your trailing stop loss order would have first risen to 1.2664-30=1.2634. That’s where you would be stopped out.

You must have heard the saying: “Cut your losses and let your winners run.” A trailing stop loss order allows you to do just that. The idea is that when you have a winning trade on, you wait for the market to stage for a reversal and take you out of your trade by using the trailing stop loss order instead of picking the right level to exit on your own.

Use of stop loss orders is critical in money and risk management. Never ever, trade without the stop loss orders! So the key to successful trading is to cut losing positions quickly and let winning positions run. This function is nicely performed by the trailing stop loss order.