How to place conditional orders (MetaTrader 4)
Pending Order
Pending order is the client's commitment to the brokerage company to buy or sell a security at a pre-defined price in the future. This type of orders is used for opening of a trade position provided the future quotes reach the pre-defined level. There are four types of pending orders available in the terminal:
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Buy Limit — buy provided the future "ASK" price is equal to the pre-defined value. The current price level is higher than the value of the placed order. Orders of this type are usually placed in anticipation of that the security price, having fallen to a certain level, will increase;
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Buy Stop — buy provided the future "ASK" price is equal to the pre-defined value. The current price level is lower than the value of the placed order. Orders of this type are usually placed in anticipation of that the security price, having reached a certain level, will keep on increasing;
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Sell Limit — sell provided the future "BID" price is equal to the pre-defined value. The current price level is lower than the value of the placed order. Orders of this type are usually placed in anticipation of that the security price, having increased to a certain level, will fall;
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Sell Stop — sell provided the future "BID" price is equal to the pre-defined value. The current price level is higher than the value of the placed order. Orders of this type are usually placed in anticipation of that the security price, having reached a certain level, will keep on falling.
Orders of Stop Loss and Take Profit can be attached to a pending order. After a pending order has triggered, its Stop Loss and Take Profit levels will be attached to the open position automatically.
Trailing Stop
Stop Loss is intended for reducing of losses where the symbol price moves in an unprofitable direction. If the position becomes profitable, Stop Loss can be manually shifted to a break-even level. To automate this process, Trailing Stop was created. This tool is especially useful when price changes strongly in the same direction or when it is impossible to watch the market continuously for some reason.
Trailing Stop is always attached to an open position and works in client terminal, not at the server like Stop Loss, for example. To set the trailing stop, one has to execute the open position context menu command of the same name in the "Terminal" window. Then one has to select the desirable value of distance between the Stop Loss level and the current price in the list opened. Only one trailing stop can be set for each open position.
