Setting SL/TP via Market Execution

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LOL Broker's support is just about useless . . .

They are an "ECN type" Broker . . . you place the Order with SL and TP set to 0.0 and then OrderModify() to place the SL & TP. Click this link ECN

Thank you RaptorUK. I do not use EAs though, just trade manually. So I guess this can't be fixed on our end...

You can try setting a Pending Order instead, then you will be able to set the TP & SL at the time of placing the Order.

The major issue I've seen with pending orders is that you get hit with the "FreezeLevel". It doesn't make me very haapy when I get hit with, "You have to set the entry price 30, 40, 50, 60 or 70 pips(take yhour oick - I've seen them all) above the current market price." It seems like the broker is setting you up to get toasted. I don't want to wait for the market to move 70 pips in my direction before having my order filled. By that time my reason for taking the trade is probably invalid and all chance of making a profit is out the window. In my experience with the brokers that I have demo accounts with, you get hit with the same thing when you try to modify your trade to Stop Loss and Take Profit. I realize that the brokers set their own rules for this but I don't feel that it's right to be told that I MUST set my Stop Loss, etc. 70 pips away from the current market price. That's just setting you up to get ripped off, IMO. Maybe I'm just not understanding the reasoning behind it but it looks to me like they're forcing you to set things at a level that almost guarantees you're going to lose.

Like I've mentioned before in otherthreads, Raptor, I use a Trade'Management EA that modifies the trade and sets the SL and TP where I want them but if I try to do it manually the "FreezeLevel" gives me frostbite.

On a 5 digit brokers a point is not a pip 30, 40 points away is 3, 4 pips.

If you are responding to my post, WHR, I'm well aware of the relationship between points and pips on a 5 digit broker. What I was referring to is what you see if you bring up the Delete/Modify dialog for an order. You'll see that the values in the dropdown boxes for SL and TP are given in points. However, at the bottom of the dialog you will see it stated "Stop Loss or Take Profit you set must differ from market price by at least 70 pips.", etc. That requires you to set the values in the drop down to 700 points to meet the 70 pip requirement.

If you go to create a pending order you will see "Open price must differ from market price by at least 30 pips.", etc. These things are what I was referring to and, in my experience, the broker definitely holds you to them. That seems to me to be an unreasonable requirement on the broker's part. It's also a bit bewildering that the EA can get away with modifying the trade after the order is placed and not get bitten by the "FreezeLevel", whereas if I try to modify the order manually I do get bitten by it. The only thing I can figure here is that using MT4's dialog "flags" the trade modification as being a Stop Loss or Take Profit modification but modifications made by the EA are not seen as such and aren't inhibited by the "FreezeLevel". Or it may be that the EA is grabbing the order before it's actually placed and setting the TP and SL values before placing the order, so it's not being seen by the broker as an order modification. I'll have to do a little digging to see if I can figure just what's going on there. I dearly wish there was a way to walk through and debug MQL code like you can for other languages such as C#, C++ and VB in Visual Studio. I've seen a few IDEs and plugins that claim to enable you to do that but I've yet to find one that works correctly, if at all.

My issue isn't related to the relationship between pips and points but rather a broker practice that seems unfair to me. However, my opinion on that's neither here nor there. If you're going to trade you have to have a broker and you're going to have to play by whatever rules they set whether you agree with them or not.

If you check I think you will find it is actually 70 points . . . I know it says pips but it is most probably wrong.

I'll check it out, Man. Thanks. If it does mean points rather than pips, then it's a much more reasonable requirement. The EA itself may be interfering with modifying SL and TP levels. I can check that out by setting up a chart that doesn't use it and see how things behave. If the EA is causing problems, well, I intend to scrap it anyway when I get what I have in mind written and working right.

mt4 was created before there were 5 digit brokers. Back then a pip and a point were identical.