Trading Lab/ Guide/Placing & managing trades
Placing & managing trades

Setting a stop-loss and a target

Presets, typed prices, and the one rule the Lab will not let you break quietly.

A stop-loss is the price at which you accept the trade was wrong and get out. A target is where you plan to take the win. Both are decided in advance, which is the entire point — decided afterwards, they are just feelings.

Setting them before you enter

When the full order ticket is open, fill in Stop loss and Target before pressing PLACE. Use the percentage presets (0.5%, 1%, 2% for the stop; 1%, 2%, 4% for the target) or type an exact price. The presets are measured from your entry price.

Setting them once you are in

The position bar carries the same controls: an SL group and a TP group, each with presets and a price box. Tap a preset or type a price and it applies immediately. The bar shows your live stop and target next to your entry and the current price, so there is never any doubt about where you get out.

Trailing the stop

TRAIL SL (or T) turns on a trailing stop. It follows price in your favour at the distance your stop is currently set, and it never widens. Turn it on once a trade is working and it locks in gains without you having to watch every bar.

The Lab watches for widening. Moving a stop further away because price is approaching it is the single most expensive habit in trading — it turns a small planned loss into a large unplanned one. The coach flags it the moment you do it, and it costs you Decision Quality even if that particular trade goes on to work out.

What happens when one is hit

If a candle trades through your stop, the position closes at your stop level (or the candle's open, if it gapped past it). Targets work the same way. The exit is logged with its reason, so your journal shows whether you were stopped out, hit target, trimmed, or closed by hand.

Reminder. The Trading Lab is an educational simulation running on synthetic data with play capital. Nothing here is investment advice, no buy or sell call is given on any real security, and no claim is made about returns.

Try it in the Arena.

Reading about it only goes so far — the skill comes from the reps.

Enter the Lab

The Trading Lab is an educational simulation running on synthetic data. It is not investment advice, gives no buy or sell calls, and makes no claim about returns.