Stop Loss, Target and Trailing

A strategy that can enter but not exit is not finished. There are five ways out, they all run at once, and whichever happens first wins.

• Stop Loss — get out at a loss you chose in advance.
• Target — get out at a profit you chose in advance.
• Trailing Stop Loss — a stop loss that follows the price up.
• Trail to Cost — move the stop to your entry price once you are far enough ahead.
• Auto Exit Time — get out at a fixed time no matter what.

Both can be set in points, as a percentage, or as a rupee amount.

Worked example. You buy an option at Rs 100. Stop Loss 20% and Target 40% mean: if it falls to Rs 80 you are out with a loss; if it rises to Rs 140 you are out with a profit.

These are examples showing how the fields work, not a recommendation. What numbers to use is your decision.

A trailing stop moves up behind the price and never moves back down. It has two settings, X and Y: for every X of profit, move the stop up by Y.

Worked example. Buy at Rs 100, initial stop Rs 90, X = 10 and Y = 5.

Price reaches Rs 110 → the stop moves to Rs 95. Price reaches Rs 120 → the stop moves to Rs 100. If price then falls back, you exit at the raised stop rather than the original one.

The trade-off is real: a tight trail protects more profit but gets you shaken out of good moves early.

Simpler than a trailing stop, and popular for that reason. Once you are ahead by the amount you set, the stop moves to your entry price.

Using the same example: Trail to Cost of 20 means that when the option reaches Rs 120, the stop moves to Rs 100 — what you paid.

From that moment the trade cannot lose money, barring a gap. Many traders use only this and no trailing stop at all.

A fixed time — usually 15:15 — at which any open position is closed.

Always set this on an intraday strategy. Without it a position can still be open when your broker starts its own square-off, and their price is not your choice.

Normally a leg enters the moment the signal fires, at whatever the price is then. Wait and Trade holds it back until the price has moved by the amount you set.

The number is a price direction, not a profit direction. +2 waits for a price 2 higher, -2 for a price 2 lower — and it reads the same whether the leg buys or sells, so you never have to work out which way "in your favour" means today.

Example: the signal fires with the option at Rs 100 and you set +2 points. Nothing is sent. When the option trades at Rs 102 or higher, the entry goes in there. Set -2 instead and it waits for Rs 98 or lower.

If the price never gets there, nothing is bought at all. The wait ends at the leg's Auto Exit Time and the order is closed off with the reason on it. Until then the dashboard shows Waiting to enter.

While it waits you can see it on the Orders page. The price shown is the level it is waiting for, and the status reads PENDING when it is waiting for a higher price or OPEN when it is waiting for a lower one. Nothing has gone to your broker yet. If you change your mind, press Cancel on that row and the leg is dropped for the day.

By default a leg is finished for the day once its stop loss is hit. These two settings let it go back in, and you choose how many extra times it may.

Re-Entry waits for the price to come back to your original entry and enters the same strike again. You bought at Rs 100 and were stopped out at Rs 90; it then waits, and only if the price climbs back to Rs 100 or higher do you go into that same contract again. A leg that sold waits the other way round — sold at Rs 100, stopped out at Rs 110, it waits for Rs 100 or lower.

Re-Execute does not wait at all. It enters again immediately and re-picks the strike from your leg settings, so an ATM leg takes whatever is ATM now — usually a different strike. That is the whole point of it: it runs the leg again rather than buying back the old contract.

Both re-run the entire leg setup, including Wait and Trade, stop loss, target, trailing and Auto Exit Time.

Only a plain stop loss starts either one. A trailing stop, a Trail to Cost stop, the target, Auto Exit Time or your own manual exit do not.

A re-entry does not use up your Max entries per day — that limit counts the entries your conditions produce, and this is the same trade going back on. The count resets each day.

You can set up to 100. Think about the number before you set a big one, especially with Re-Execute: every attempt is a real order at your broker, with the brokerage and charges that go with it, and Re-Execute goes back in the moment the stop loss is hit rather than waiting for anything.

This decides whether your stop loss and target are placed as real orders at your broker, or held by the platform and sent when they trigger.

At the broker: the order is sitting in the market and works even if the platform loses connection. Not every broker accepts every order type.

Held by the platform: more flexible, but it depends on the platform being connected at that moment.

If you are unsure, the broker-side option is the safer default for a stop loss.