The moment you enter a trade in Scalpel, three levels arm. None of them are resting orders at your broker. They are watched by the app, and each one fires a real exit when price trades through it.
The three levels
- A tight working stop. This is your scalp stop, sized to the symbol's ATR with a floor in cents. If you entered with a risk preset, that preset's stop drives it directly.
- A wider catastrophe net below it, for crash safety. It follows the working stop when you move it, and it is not drawn on the chart: it is a background safety line, not something to trade off.
- A take-profit at a multiple of R above entry, 2R by default. R is your stop distance, so a 12 cent stop puts the target 24 cents up. Set the multiple to 0 to turn it off.
Managing them
You can move the levels three ways.
- Keys. B moves the stop to breakeven. Shift+T toggles trailing.
- Drag on the chart. Grab the stop or the target line and drag it. A live preview follows the cursor and commits when you let go. Each line carries a chip with the P&L and R that level would lock in, in the same format as the position badge. Drag the target below entry to clear it.
- Add a target. With no take-profit set, a small green "+ TP" handle sits on the entry line. Drag it up to create one.
The price axis fits itself to keep your levels in view, so even a tight 10 second chart shows the stop and the target.
Trailing
Trailing only ever moves the stop up. You choose what it follows:
- Same as my stop: each new high pulls the stop to the distance you entered with.
- Cents or percent behind the high.
- 1-minute candle lows: every time a 1-minute candle closes, the stop moves to just under its low. That gives a runner room and gets you out on the first lower low.
Two automatic switches sit alongside: move to breakeven once you are up a set number of R, and start trailing once you are up a set number of R.
The trade-off
Because the stops live in the app, they never sit on the book where others can see them, and they can do things a plain stop order can't, like trail a candle low. The cost is simple: Scalpel has to be running for them to work. If you close the app with a position open, nothing is watching it.
The app also watches marks on the active backend only, so switch between SIM and LIVE when you are flat. Switching to SIM while holding a LIVE position pauses that position's stop until you switch back.
We would rather you know that up front than find out the hard way.