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The Visual Trading Console features a unique ticket-based trade manager module that offers the following:

• Fully customizable, profile based trade manager strategies
• Automatic Trade Manager feature
• Initial SL / TP setting
• 13 types of trailing stops
• Five level stepping stop
• “Break even + ” feature for SL & TP (when in profit or in loss)
• 5 level profit taking feature
• 5 level stop loss feature
• Robust Add to position feature
• Timed stop functionality for individual trades

All of the listed features can be combined for building personalized trade management strategies, which can be used at any time by applying the previously defined and saved trade management profile to a selected trade.

Multiple trade management strategies can be put to work simultaneously to automatically manage your Metatrader trades. Since trade management is conducted on a per-ticket basis, you can select individual strategies for selected orders, while leaving other trades intact.

Building trade manager profiles

Trade manager profiles are built and managed using the “Trade Manager Profile Editor” of the Visual Trading Console:

The editor tab uncovers a view showing 8 different trade manager tasks organized into tabs having green & red icons beside tab names, which indicate whether a given task is active or not.

Trade manager tasks can be combined to work together as a complete trade management strategy. This is done by configuring selected tasks and saving them as a trade management strategy under a unique profile name. A special control panel is located to the right of the trade manager grid. It is used to Load, Save, and Delete profiles as well as Apply and Clear trade manager profiles for selected trades.

The “Apply settings to trade” list box is used to select an existing ticket and quickly apply the currently viewed profile to this trade or clear any previously assigned trade manager tasks, which disables the trade manager for the selected order ticket.

Saved profiles can be utilized by the “Automatic Trade Manager” feature available in the Visual Trading Console. Please visit the following link to learn more about this feature:

Automatic Trade Manager Feature →

Specifying the trade management tasks

The trade manager module in the Visual Trading Console for Metatrader can perform the following tasks, which can be grouped together to create, store, and use custom trade manager profiles. Please read the text below to learn more about each task, how it is defined, and how it performs.

Initial SL/TP

This trade manager task is used to set the initial Stop Loss & Take Profit values for the managed trade. The operation is executed only once when the trade manager profile is applied to a trade, which is indicated by “Done!” in the Execution Status column.

Stop values can be entered in regular pips or price values. Before entering values, proper units should be selected from the Units drop-down list.

The “Enabled” checkbox field is used to enable/disable a given entry – useful when using a previously defined trade manager profile where we don’t want to use one of the previously defined tasks.

Trailing Stop

A trailing stop is used to gradually trail the stop loss level by a selected factor such as the number of pips behind your high watermark for the floating P/L value.

This function works similarly to the Trailing Stop feature built into Metatrader, but instead of trailing your stop right away by a fixed number of pips (when you reach your trailing stop value), it can be set to start at a certain number of pips in profit or a specified price level using various trailing stop methods.

This parameter is controlled by selecting the “Units (in profit)” value and setting the “Start trailing at” field. The default setting of “0 pips” will enable the trailing stop as soon as the trade is in profit.

Once this value is set, it is time to choose a trailing stop method, which should be used. This is done by clicking on one of the trailing method tabs:

The available trailing stop types include:

• Trailing by a defined number of pips
• Trailing by a multiple of the ATR value on a selected chart period
• Trailing by ATR Exit indicator value on a selected chart period
• Trailing by the High or Low value of the last X number of completed bars on a selected chart period
• Trailing by a moving average value on a selected chart period
• Trailing by the Parabolic SAR value on a selected chart period
• Trailing by Fractals on a selected chart period
• Trailing by Super Trend indicator reading on a selected chart period
• Trailing by Ichimoku indicator reading on a selected chart period
• Trailing by Heiken Ashi indicator’s high/low reading on a selected chart period
• Trailing using the proportional SL algorithm
• Trailing by a percentage of your TakeProfit size
• Trailing by Bollinger Bands indicator’s high/low band reading on a selected chart period

The setting illustrated above utilizes an ATR-based trailing stop, that will be calculated from the last completed candle on the selected “Chart periodicity” using the setting of 14 periods ATR multiplied by 2.5. Additionally a “Pip padding” value can be added to the calculated ATR value (a setting of 2 would add or subtract an extra 2 pips to the calculated ATR value depending on the position type; short or long). Parameters can be fully customized to suit every trader’s individual preferences.

The current state of execution will be displayed in the “Execution” column.

The “Enabled” checkbox field is used to enable/disable a given entry – useful when using a previously defined trade manager profile where we don’t want to use one of the previously defined tasks.

Stepping Stop

Stepping stop is used to perform the same stop management feature as the trailing stop, but instead of performing a linear action (advancing the stop each time the price reaches a new profit level), it moves the stop in predefined steps at specified profit level points.

The example above illustrates a 4 point stepping stop which will move the stop in 4 steps:

1. When the trade is 5 pips in profit, our stop will be moved 15 pips behind the order entry price (it will tighten our initial stop)
2. When the trade moves 10 pips into profit, our stop will now be set to 1 pip in profit (so we have a “free trade”)
3. When the trade moves 15 pips into profit, our stop will now secure 5 pips of profit
4. When the trade moves 20 pips into profit, our stop level will be placed 10 pips in profit.

The setting of individual stepping stop levels is done by modifying the values in the 2nd and 4th columns of the Stepping Stop table view.

The current state of execution will be displayed in the “Execution” column.

The “Enabled” checkbox field is used to enable/disable a given entry – useful when using a previously defined trade manager profile where we don’t want to use one of the previously defined tasks.

Break Even

The break-even task is used to set the stop to break even when a specified profit (or loss) level is reached. The levels can be defined by the number of pips from entry or using a certain price level. The units used can be selected from the drop-down list in the “Units (profit/loss)” column.

The “break-even” mechanism in Visual Trading Console also adds an optional “padding” parameter “Set stop to break even + [ ] pips“, which can be used to cover transaction costs, so that when price action hits the break-even point, at least some amount of profit is secured to cover transaction costs or even make a bit extra.

The value entry table consists of two rows, one for setting the stop loss value to break even (green) and one for setting take profit to break even (red) when the price reverses against our favor by a number of pips in the negative or when it reaches a predetermined price level.

When using “pips” as the desired units, the value entry field should be filled with pip values relative to the entry price.

The current state of execution will be displayed in the “Execution” column.

The “Enabled” checkbox field is used to enable/disable a given entry – useful when using a previously defined trade manager profile where we don’t want to use one of the previously defined tasks.

Multi-level Profit Taking

This trade manager task is used to scale out profit from a trade at up to 5 different levels (closing out a defined percentage of the trade at each level).

Two parameters are used to define each level. These are “Target level at” (entered in pips, price, or SL/TP percentage), which is used to calculate the price level at which a defined percentage of our trade will be closed out. This parameter is defined by the value entered into the “Close” cell.

Every time we define a new level, the “Remaining: %” indicator below the “Close” column will reflect the percent of the trade that should be left open once all target levels are hit.

Example case scenario:

If we would open a sell order on the EURUSD for 1 lot (with a 15 pip SL and 30 pip TP) and apply the trade manager entry defined in the illustration above, the following actions would take place:

1. When the price hits the 1.22331 level (5 pips of profit), the trade manager would close out 0,2 lots of our trade and leave the remaining 0,8 lots open and managed using the same profile (The Execution column would display “Hit!”)
2. When the price hits the 1.22281 level (10 pips of profit), the trade manager would close out 0,2 lots of our trade and leave the remaining 0,6 lots open and managed using the same profile (The Execution column would display “Hit!”)
3. When the price hits the 1.22231 level (15 pips of profit), the trade manager would close out 0,2 lots of our trade and leave the remaining 0,4 lots open and managed using the same profile (The Execution column would display “Hit!”)
4. When the price hits the 1.22181 level (20 pips of profit), the trade manager would close out another 0,2 lots of our trade and leave the remaining 0,2 lots open and managed using the same profile (The Execution column would display “Hit!”)
5. At this point, the trade manager is done with our trade and we still have 0,2 lots open, which will be closed out by our SL or TP parameters. It would be useful to set our SL to “break-even” at this point (this can also be automated using the trade manager).

Multi-level Stop Loss

This trade manager task is used to scale out of a losing trade at up to 5 different levels (gradually closing out a defined percentage of the trade at each level).

Two parameters are used to define each level. These are “Stop level at” (entered in pips, price, or SL/TP percentage), which is used to calculate the price level at which a defined percentage of our trade will be closed out. This parameter is defined by the value entered into the “Close” cell.

Every time we define a new level, the “Remaining: %” indicator below the “Close” column will reflect the percent of the trade that should be left open once all target levels are hit.

Example case scenario:

If we would open a sell order on the EURUSD for 0.1 lots and apply the trade manager entry defined in the illustration above, the following actions would take place:

1. When the price hits the 1.31115 level (10 pip loss), the trade manager would close out 0,01 lots of our trade and leave the remaining 0,09 lots open and managed using the same profile (The Execution column would display “Hit!”)
2. When the price hits the 1.31215 level (20 pip loss), the trade manager would close out 0,02 lots of our trade and leave the remaining 0,07 lots open and managed using the same profile (The Execution column would display “Hit!”)
3. When the price hits the 1.31315 level (30 pip loss), the trade manager would close out 0,03 lots of our trade and leave the remaining 0,04 lots open and managed using the same profile (The Execution column would display “Hit!”)
4. Finally, when the price hits the 1.31415 level (40 pip loss), the trade manager would close out completely.