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I'm looking to place a trailing stop on a stock IF AND ONLY IF the stock reaches a certain profit level. My goal is to effectively place a sell limit order, but to extend the upside if the stock continues to run. (Note: I did not include any down-side protection in this example)

Will this work as described below? (Platform: Think or Swim)

Current stock price: 100
Side: Sell
Price rules: TRAILSTOPLIMIT
Limit Price: 150
Stop offset: -10

Desired outcome: Will this place a trailing stop order of -10 if the stock prices goes up to 150?

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    Looks like you've got a correct answer below, but since you're on ToS you can do what you want by adding a condition to your trailing stop limit order (hit gear icon and under conditions enter symbol, choose mark, set trigger to >= and type in your threshold.) Then your trailing stop limit order will only take affect after the condition is met.
    – Hart CO
    Commented Apr 7, 2021 at 5:35
  • @HartCO Excellent. Thank you! Quick followup: I am trying to "buy to close" a short put option using the same conditional stop loss. The 'Symbol' under the 'Conditions' section automatically filled in the underlying (WMT in this case). Does the system know the trigger is actually based on the "WMT 100 (Weeklys)" or do I need to enter something else?
    – Robert Cartaino
    Commented Apr 7, 2021 at 18:12
  • I'm only familiar with using stock price there, so if WMT hits x at any point then that condition is met and the order you entered gets placed. Just noticed 'affect' instead of 'effect' in my comment, oh well.
    – Hart CO
    Commented Apr 7, 2021 at 18:33

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No, the stop order will go into effect immediately. If the stock drops $10, the stop will be triggered, even if the stock did not reach $150 first. Since you don't want a stop to occur in that case, you may need a conditional order instead.

The role of the "limit price" in the "trailing stop limit" order appears to be that when the stop is triggered (upon a $10 drop), it becomes a limit order instead of a market order. So the sell order would have a limit price of $150.

The problem is that the order will execute if the stock drops $10 and then reaches at least $150, whereas you want it to execute if the stock reaches at least $150 and then drops $10.

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