Fixed Step Trailing Stop MT4 Expert Advisor

Fixed Step Trailing Stop EA is an expert advisor that can manage your order's stop-loss by moving at fixed steps. Below you can download this free expert advisor for MetaTrader 4.

This EA follows a simple rule and doesn't rely on any indicators. You will see it in more detail and with some examples.

What Is Trailing Stop?

In case you are new to the concept of trailing stop: trailing stop is the practice of moving the stop-loss level closer to the current price when the price moves in your favor.

Trailing the stop-loss allows traders to limit their losses and safeguard their profits. It is a very popular practice.

As you may have read in books and forums, one of the first rules in Forex is Cut your losses short and let your profits run.

MT4 Fixed Step Trailing Stop

Using a trailing stop is a very popular practice among traders. With the MT4 Fixed Step Trailing Stop EA, you can have the stop-loss of your trades incremented by fixed values when the price moves far enough.

What Is MT4 Fixed Step Trailing Stop EA?

MT4 Fixed Step Trailing Stop EA is a free open-source expert advisor that can manage the stop-loss levels of your trades.

In particular, this expert advisor can use two parameters to increment the stop-loss according to your preferences.

In many cases, you might want to increment the stop-loss by a specific value when the price is at specific distance from the current stop.

This trailing stop-loss EA allow you to do exactly this: to trigger a stop-loss increment when the price reaches a specific threshold.

Why Is MT4 Fixed Step Trailing Stop EA Useful?

Risk management is one of the most important aspect in trading. Having a stop-loss will protect you from margin calls and big losses.

In many cases, it is useful to have a trailing stop, which is a "moving stop". A trailing stop is a stop-loss where the value is updated when the price moves in the favor of the trade.

There are many types of trailing stop — it can be a fixed step change or it can follow some indicator.

In the case of the MT4 Fixed Step Trailing Stop expert advisor, the stop-loss follows the price with fixed increments.

There are several advantages of using MT4 Fixed Step Trailing Stop EA:

1. Filtering options to select which trades to manage.
2. A stop-loss is set automatically if there is none.
3. The stop-loss follows the price when moving in the trade's favor.
4. It doesn't require human interaction.
5. Limit losses.
6. Secure profits.
7. Avoid margin calls.
8. Notifications when the stop-loss is updated.

Parameters

You can configure this expert advisor with the following input parameters:

• Points Of Distance From The Current Stop — how far the current price should go from the current SL for the EA to trigger.
• Points Of Increment The Current Stop — how much to move the SL by.
• Apply To — select which types of orders to apply a trailing stop to.
• Filter By Magic Number — true or false depending on whether you want to modify only the orders with a specific magic number.
• Magic Number — specify the magic number in case the above is true.
• Filter By Comment — true or false depending on whether you want to modify only the orders with a specific comment.
• Comment — specify the comment if the above is true.
• Enable Trailing Stop — if true, the EA is active and is trailing stop-losses.
• Enable Notifications feature — if true, the EA will send notifications upon triggering.
• Send Alert Notification — if true, the EA will issue native on-screen alerts.
• Send Notification to Mobile — if true, the EA will send push-notifications to your mobile device.
• Send Notification via Email — if true, the EA will send emails when it updates a stop-loss.
• Show Graphical Panel — if true, a graphical panel will appear on the chart to control the expert advisor.

Rules

The EA abides by the following rules:

• The price moves in the direction of the order: up for a buy order and down for a sell order.
• The distance between the stop-loss level and the price is equal or greater than a number of pips given in the first input parameter.
• The stop-loss level moves in the direction of the order of a number of pips in the second input parameter.
• The first number should always be greater than the second one.

Examples

These two examples explain the mechanics of this EA.

Example Buy

Buy order: EUR/USD with open price at 1.2630, stop-loss at 1.2620, trailing stop distance at 20, trailing stop increment at 10.

• When the price reaches 1.2620 + 20 = 1.2640, the stop-loss will be moved by 10 pips to 1.2620 + 10 = 1.2630.
• When the price reaches 1.2630 + 20 = 1.2650, the stop-loss will be once again moved by 10 pips, to 1.2630 + 10 = 1.2640.

• When the price reaches 1.2720 - 20 = 1.2700, the stop-loss will be moved by 10 pips to 1.2720 - 10 = 1.2710.
• When the price reaches 1.2710 - 20 = 1.2690, the stop-loss will be once again moved by 10 pips, to 1.2710 - 10 = 1.2700.

This will continue until the stop-loss is hit or the order is otherwise closed.

Trailing Stop Demonstration

In the image below, you can see a demonstration of the expert advisor as it moves the stop-loss for a EUR/USD buy trade with 10 pips trigger distance and 5 pips increment step.

How to Download and Use Fixed Step Trailing Stop EA?

You can download the expert advisor using the link below and install it by following the presented instructions.

➥ Download MQLTA MT4 Fixed Step Trailing Stop

The installation is very easy to perform; the same is the use. Once you run the expert advisor, you can set all the necessary input parameters.

Make sure you enable Live Trading in the Common tab when attaching the EA and also in the platform's menu Tools→Options→Expert Advisors. Otherwise, it won't be able to modify orders.

MT4 Fixed Step Trailing Stop EA Installation

To install the EA, please follow the instructions below:

1. Download the expert advisor archive file.
2. Open the MetaTrader 4 data folder (via File→Open Data Folder).
3. Open the MQL4 Folder.
4. Copy all the folders from the archive directly to the MQL4 folder.
5. Restart MetaTrader 4 or refresh the expert advisors list by right-clicking the Navigator subwindow of the platform and choosing Refresh.

Or you can read a more detailed instruction on how to perform the installation.

Frequently asked questions

What settings to use to replicate the standard MetaTrader trailing stop behavior, for example, 20 pips trailing stop updating every pip?

The Points Of Distance From The Current Stop input parameter should be set to your desired TSL value + 1 (e.g., 21 in your example) and the Points Of Increment The Current Stop input parameter should be set to 1. After reaching the distance (e.g., 21), the stop-loss is moved by 1 pip. If price moves 1 more pip in your direction, the stop-loss also gets moved by 1 pip, and so on.

Conclusion

Using a trailing stop is a good practice with many trading strategies because it can help limiting your losses. This version of a trailing stop EA follows some very simple rules and uses no indicators.