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What are trailing features and how do they work?
What are trailing features and how do they work?

Cryptohopper's trailing features automate trading actions like Trailing Stop-Loss, Stop-Buy, & Stop-Short, optimizing your strategy.

Pete Darby avatar
Written by Pete Darby
Updated over a month ago

Cryptohopper's trailing features show why trading with a bot is so convenient. When your bot is “Trailing”, it is automatically following the price and waiting for an action to take. Such actions could be adjusting your take profit when the price drops, placing a buy order when the price goes up, or buying back your position when it was in a short. We call these: Trailing Stop-Loss, Trailing Stop-Buy & Trailing Stop-Short.

Trailing Stop-Loss

The Trailing Stop-Loss is by far our most popular feature. It’s a feature that’s almost usable for every type of trader.

The Trailing Stop-Loss automatically adjusts your stop-loss when the price goes up. Whenever the price goes down again, your TSL (Trailing Stop-Loss) will fire and sell your position. This is an ideal way to follow an upwards trend and to prevent selling too early. Manual traders use this feature, semi-automatic traders, and full auto-traders.

Line graph illustrating how Trailing Stop-Loss (TSL) works. The chart shows an upward price movement (blue line) with a trailing stop-loss line (red line) following below it at a set percentage. As the price rises, the TSL line moves up in parallel, and when the price eventually drops, it intersects with the TSL line, marking the sell point. Arrows and annotations highlight how the TSL adjusts upward with price increases but remains fixed when price decreases.

You can configure your Trailing-Stop loss in your Base config or Config pools, or you directly add it to your order in the Advanced View.

Animated screenshot demonstrating the three ways to set up Trailing Stop-Loss in Cryptohopper: first highlighting the TSL settings in Base Configuration, then showing the Config Pool settings, and finally pointing to the TSL option in Advanced View when placing an order. Each location is highlighted sequentially with arrows or indicators showing where to click.

Two settings are essential with the TSL. The Trailing stop-loss percentage determines how much the price should drop before the TSL sells the position, and the Arm trailing stop-loss at determines when your TSL should start tracking the price. It can do that right at the start at 0.01% “profit”, or only when a position reached a percentage profit.


You can also configure if your trading bot may only use the Trailing stop-loss to sell positions (it will ignore the short/take profit), if it may only sell when a position is in a profit and if it can try again when its sell order didn’t fill.

Trailing Stop-Buy

When you buy, you never know if you’ve bought it for the bottom price. This is impossible to know, but it is possible to get help from a trading bot!

Use the Trailing Stop-Buy (TSB) to delay your buy and track the price. TSB will keep monitoring the rate down until it goes up. When it goes up, it will initiate the buy order and voila! You can configure the Trailing Stop-Buy in your Base config and Config pool, and it will then always use it before when your trading bot gets a trading signal or when its trading strategy signals a buy.

Line graph illustrating how Trailing Stop-Buy (TSB) works. The graph shows a downward price movement (turquoise line) with multiple 'Order adjusted down' points marked along the descent. At each point, the TSB adjusts the potential buy price lower, following the declining price. The graph ends with a 'Stop buy' point where the price begins to rise, triggering the purchase. The visualization demonstrates how TSB helps catch better entry points by following the price down and buying when it reverses upward.

You can also apply it to a manual order. Just go to the Advanced View, and configure it when placing an order. The TSB has one important parameter, and it’s the Trailing buy percentage.

Screenshot of Cryptohopper's Advanced View trading interface showing a price chart and order placement panel. The interface demonstrates where to set up a Trailing Stop-Buy (TSB) for manual orders, with the TSB percentage input field highlighted. The screen includes a candlestick chart in the center, order book on the right, and trading parameters on the left including where to enter the trailing buy percentage.

This determines how much the price must rise until the actual buy order is placed.


Trailing Stop-Short

The Trailing Stop-Short (TSS) is almost the same as the TSB. First, it’s essential to know that Shorting is different in Cryptohopper than traditional shorting.

Our shorting is like a buyback function. When you expect that the price of a position will go down, you initiate the short and these funds will be reserved to buyback the same amount of the coin for less. The only difference is, is that it will track how much the position is going down and how much “loss” you’ve saved! When you expect that you’ve reached the bottom, you stop the short. Your bot will repurchase the position, protecting yourself from a loss, and you should be making a profit sooner.

The Trailing Stop-Short will automate the part where your trading bot initiates the short, and when it buys back the position. You could use this as an alternative for a traditional Stop-Loss.

Line graph demonstrating how Trailing Stop-Short (TSS) works in shorting. The turquoise line shows price movement starting from 'Start of short' at the top, with multiple 'Order adjusted down' points marked as the price falls. A dashed line indicates the initial arm percentage where shorting begins, and the distance between the final 'Stop buy' point and the start shows the profit margin. The graph illustrates how TSS follows the price down, adjusting the short position, and closes the position when the price reverses upward by the specified trailing percentage.

The Trailing Stop-Short has a lot of settings, but two of them are crucial. First is the Arm Trailing stop-short at. This determines at how much loss a short should be initiated.

Second is the Trailing stop-short percentage. This determines how much the price should go up again before the short is stopped and the position is bought back.


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