Safety limits and stops: setting them and using them

Setting the numbers

In the builder, every trading robot has a row called Safety limits. You will click a limit to change its number. A daily loss limit of 2% means the robot stops opening new trades after a 2% loss in one day; a biggest trade size of 1 lot means no trade larger than that is placed.

You can change the numbers, but you cannot delete the limits, and the builder refuses a robot that goes around them. What each limit does is explained on the safety page.

Choose the numbers from your own rules, or from your prop firm's published limits, with room to spare: a firm's 5% daily limit is a hard line, so a robot that stops at 4% leaves room for an open trade to close.

What happens when a limit is reached

The robot stops opening new trades. It writes why in the Experts tab and on the chart, and a robot with an email or push block can tell you too. Trades that are already open keep their stop loss and take profit, and the robot keeps managing them: a trailing stop still trails.

A daily limit resets at the time you set, midnight by default, on the clock the robot uses. A trades-per-day limit resets the same way. The spread limit and the trading hours clear by themselves when the spread narrows or the hours begin.

An account floor is different: once the account is at or below the floor, the robot opens no new trades until you decide what to do. If you chose "close its trades" for the floor, it closes them first.

Your own stop button

Every robot that trades has a Stop robot button in the corner of its chart. Press it, then choose:

• Stop new trades: it opens no new trades. Trades already open keep their stops and keep being managed.
• Stop and close its trades: it closes the trades it opened, then stops.

It stays stopped, even after MetaTrader restarts, until you press Resume robot on its chart. The buttons do not show in the Strategy Tester.

Two more ways to stop a robot, from MetaTrader itself:

• Switch off Algo Trading on the toolbar, or press Ctrl+E. Every robot stops opening trades. Open trades stay open, with their stops.
• Right-click the robot's name on the chart and choose Remove. The robot is gone from the chart. Open trades stay open, with their stops, and nothing manages them any more.

A limit for the whole account

The limits above live inside one robot and apply to its own trades. If you also trade by hand, or run more than one robot, the Account Protector watches the whole account: at the loss limit you set, it closes every open trade and deletes every pending order, whoever opened them.

It cannot stop another robot, or you, from opening a new trade. It can only close trades after they open, and price gaps, slippage or a lost connection can take a loss past the limit. The Account Protector, in plain words.