Can you explain Trailing Stop Orders?

External question — Personal Finance Stack Exchange Author: Real Dreams Original post: https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/140191 License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Adaptation: HTML converted to plain text; contact email addresses removed. Interactive Broker has an order type named Trailing Stop Orders . I need some help as even after reading its help page it's still a mysterious order type for me! How can this be used in an increasing and a decreasing market for buy and sell? (four cases)

External answer — Personal Finance Stack Exchange Author: Bob Baerker Original post: https://money.stackexchange.com/a/140192 License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Adaptation: HTML converted to plain text; contact email addresses removed. It's spelled out clearly in your link. For every penny the stock rises, the stop price rises one penny. If it drops to the trailing stop price, a sell order is generated (for a long position). Step 1 – Enter a Trailing Stop Sell Order You have purchased 100 shares of XYZ for $66.34 per share (your Average Price) and want to lock in a profit and limit your loss. You set a trailing stop order with the trailing amount 20 cents below the current market price. Step 2 – Order Transmitted The current market price of XYZ is $62.46 and the initial stop price is calculated as $62.26, or $62.46 – the trailing amount of 0.20. Step 3 – Market Price Rises As soon as you submit your order, the price of XYZ starts to rise and hits $62.66. The trailing stop price has adjusted accordingly and is at $62.46, or $62.66 – the $0.20 trailing amount.

External answer — Personal Finance Stack Exchange Author: D Stanley Original post: https://money.stackexchange.com/a/140193 License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Adaptation: HTML converted to plain text; contact email addresses removed. A trailing limit order is used to set a price to sell your position if the price goes below some threshold below the maximum price of the stock since the order was placed. Say you wanted to cut your losses if the stock drops 10% from its highest price, and the stock is currently at $100. Then if the stock drops to $90 a sell order would be placed. If, however, the stock rises to $110, then the limit order will be adjusted to 10% below that price, or $99. You can also set an absolute threshold as well, say if you want to sell if the stock gets more than $10 below its highest price. It's a way to limit your losses that adjusts if the stock price goes up significantly.