Technical Trading Tips and Techniques by 
The markets are somewhat quiet today, so I thought I would give my perspective on trailing stops, specifically the difference between manual and automated trailing stops. I touch on this subject relatively often in my talks and webinars, so I wanted to give my thoughts on this important topic.
To implement an automated trailing stop, one would simply set-up that function on one’s forex trading platform, choosing the amount of pips by which the trailing stop will follow market price if the trade goes in the trader’s favor. To perform a manual trailing stop, on the other hand, one would actually move the trailing stop manually to lock-in profits as price goes in one’s favor.
I much prefer manual trailing stops. For one, automated trailing stops have the potential to be extremely arbitrary, especially when choosing the number of pips to trail the market by. With manual trailing stops, on the other hand, one can move the stop loss according to how the market moves with respect to support and resistance levels. Using manual trailing stops, a trader sets his/her risk management according to actual market price action (in the form of support/resistance), and not according to an arbitrarily-chosen number of pips.
Of course, if one does not possess the proper time or discipline to move one’s stop loss manually, then automated trailing stops do serve their purpose. But if at all practical, manual trailing stops are preferred, as they allow traders to let the market dictate a sound risk management strategy.
James Chen, CMT
Hi !
one thing is, i agreed with you. manual TS, i do practice it as i found auto TS had already set a minimize of 15 TS. but with manual TS yes we can have some control of how much we going to take the pips. and sometimes when we see the market retrace a bit then we can adjust the TS to have some space then the market shoots and we have our target pips !
Hi lzha,
Thanks for your comments!
James Chen