Trailing Stop & Breakeven

Two of the most effective ways to protect an open position without setting a fixed exit target — trailing stops follow price momentum, while breakeven locks in a floor at your entry point. Both are configured inside the Exit Conditions panel of any strategy on StratBase.ai.

Trailing Stop continuously repositions your stop-loss as price moves in your favor. The stop never moves backward — it only ratchets in the direction of profit. Once price reverses by your defined distance, the position closes automatically.

Breakeven is a one-time adjustment. The moment price reaches your activation threshold, the stop-loss relocates to the exact entry price. After that, the trade can only break even or profit — it cannot become a loss (excluding fees).

These two options are mutually exclusive in StratBase.ai. Enabling one automatically disables the other, since both write to the same stop-loss slot.

Inside the strategy editor, open Exit Conditions → Trailing Stop and toggle it on. Two fields appear:

| Field | What It Controls | Suggested Starting Value | |---|---|---| | Activation % | How far price must move in your favor before the trail begins | 1.5% – 3% | | Trail % | The gap maintained between current best price and the stop | 0.8% – 2% |

Step-by-Step: Long Trade Example

1. Entry price: $200
2. Activation set to 2%, Trail set to 1%
3. Price climbs to $204 → activation threshold hit → trailing stop engages at $201.96 ($204 × 0.99)
4. Price continues to $210 → stop ratchets up to $207.90 ($210 × 0.99)
5. Price pulls back to $207.90 → position closes at +3.95% profit

The stop never followed price downward during step 4 — it only moved higher.

Step-by-Step: Short Trade Example

1. Entry price: $200
2. Activation 2%, Trail 1%
3. Price drops to $196 → trailing engages at $197.96 ($196 × 1.01)
4. Price drops further to $190 → stop moves down to $191.90 ($190 × 1.01)
5. Price bounces to $191.90 → position closes at +4.05% profit

Tip: Set the activation threshold at least 1× your average candle range to avoid premature triggering on noise. For volatile pairs like BTC/USDT on the 15m timeframe, values of 2–3% activation and 1–1.5% trail tend to perform well in backtests.

Open Exit Conditions → Breakeven and enable it. Only one parameter appears:

| Field | What It Controls | Suggested Starting Value | |---|---|---| | Activation % | Profit required to shift SL to entry price | 1% – 2% |

Step-by-Step Example

1. Entry: $500, initial stop-loss at $485 (3% risk)
2. Breakeven activation set to 1.5%
3. Price rises to $507.50 → stop-loss instantly moves from $485 → $500
4. Price reverses to $500 → position closes at 0% P&L (net of fees, effectively a small fee cost)
5. Price instead reaches take-profit at $525 → closes at +5% profit as normal

The original take-profit target remains completely unchanged. Breakeven only affects the floor, not the ceiling.

Tip: Breakeven works exceptionally well in choppy markets where you want signal-based TP targets respected, but can't afford runaway losses if the setup fails after initial movement.

Neither feature operates in isolation — StratBase.ai evaluates all active exit conditions on every candle:

• Initial SL remains active until activation threshold is hit; it is your safety net before either mechanism triggers
• Take-profit levels fire independently — including multi-level partial TPs — regardless of whether trailing or breakeven is active
• Signal exits (close on opposite signal, etc.) retain full priority and will close the position before any trailing calculation runs

| Scenario | Recommended | |---|---| | Trend-following strategy with no fixed TP | Trailing Stop | | Mean-reversion with defined TP targets | Breakeven | | High-volatility assets (crypto, small caps) | Trailing Stop with wider trail % | | Tight risk management on forex pairs | Breakeven | | Scalping on 1m–5m timeframes | Breakeven (fewer moving parts) |

• Stop Loss Configuration
• Take Profit Configuration
• Exit Conditions Overview