Trailing Stop Settings for MT4: 11 of 12 Pip Settings Lost on EURUSD M5, and the One Winner Lost 2.17 Pips a Trade in the Second Half

“What trailing stop should I use?” is one of the most common MT4 questions, and the usual answer is a number like 20 or 30 pips with no test behind it. Here is the test, followed by the steps to set it up.

How do you set a trailing stop in MT4?

1. Open the Terminal window (Ctrl+T) and go to the Trade tab.
2. Right-click the open position and choose Trailing Stop.
3. Pick one of the preset values or Custom and type your own. The value is in points. On a 5-digit broker 10 points is 1 pip, so a 20-pip trail is 200 points.
4. Choose None in the same menu to switch it off, or Delete All to remove it from every position.

Two things the menu does not tell you. First, the trailing stop is run by your terminal, not by the broker’s server: close MT4 or lose the connection and the stop stays where it was last moved. If you trail overnight, use a VPS. Second, the trail sets one distance per trade, in points, whatever the market is doing. That second point is where the test below comes in. If MT4 is new to you, start with my MT4 first chart setup.

How did I test the settings?

• Data: EURUSD M5, June 3 to August 26, 2026, 16,926 bars. Median ATR 14 was 1.96 pips.
• Entries: EMA 9/21 cross and Stochastic 14/3/3 cross from beyond 20/80, the same two entries as in my exit signal test.
• Exit: a trailing stop 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 or 50 pips behind the best price since entry. Every trade also had an initial stop of 3 ATR (about 6 pips at the median); the trail took over once it was tighter than that. One day maximum hold.
• Cost: 1 pip per trade, from my spread and swap test. The stop was checked before anything else inside a bar.

Which trailing stop distance worked on EURUSD M5?

Net of a 1-pip spread. Median hold is for both entries together where they were close.

Eleven of twelve lost. The one profit is not one to copy. Split the sample at July 15 and the 50-pip trail on Stochastic entries made +6.93 pips a trade in the first half and lost 2.17 in the second. Its result also sits right at the edge of what the same trades produced when closed at random times (95th percentile +1.95). A handful of long trends decided it.

On a 5-minute chart, where a normal bar covers about 2 pips, a 30 to 50-pip trail is not trailing much at all. It is the 3 ATR initial stop plus a lottery ticket on the next big trend.

Is a pip trail or an ATR trail better?

The ATR trail lost about 0.3 pips a trade less than the fixed 5-pip trail on both entries. It widens when the market is busy and tightens when it is quiet, which a fixed number of points cannot do. My ATR settings test shows how much the normal bar size changes from hour to hour and from M5 to H1.

MT4’s built-in menu cannot trail by ATR. For that you need an EA or a trailing-stop script that reads ATR 14 each bar, or you move the stop by hand to 2 ATR behind the high once a bar closes. Test any such EA in the Strategy Tester first, as in my EA backtest guide.

Does a trailing stop work better on higher timeframes?

I resampled the same EURUSD data and ran the EMA 9/21 entry on M15 and H1.

The M15 30-pip trail looks good until you split it: -0.64 in the first half, +5.28 in the second, on 59 trades. On M15 the SAR flip was the steadier one, +0.44 and +0.25 in the two halves on 194 trades. How M15 and M5 work together as a filter is in my multi-timeframe analysis on MT4. On H1 every exit lost, but with 37 to 63 trades that sample is too small to judge.

What settings should you use?

• On M5 EURUSD, trail by ATR, about 1.5 to 2 ATR, which was 3 to 4 pips at the median in this sample. Of the fixed-pip settings, 5 pips came closest.
• Avoid 10 to 20 pips on M5. On EMA entries they lost 2.10 to 2.49 pips a trade: too wide to protect, too tight to catch a trend.
• Do not trust a wide trail because of a good month. 30 and 50 pips flipped sign between halves.
• Keep the terminal running or use a VPS. The built-in trail does nothing while MT4 is closed.

Whether to trail at all or set a fixed target is in my trailing stop vs take profit test; on gold the answer was different. The initial stop size matters as much as the trail, see the stop loss distance test.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good trailing stop for MT4?

On EURUSD M5 a trail of 1.5 to 2 ATR, about 3 to 4 pips, lost least. Of the fixed settings in MT4’s points menu, 5 pips was closest; 11 of the 12 fixed settings I tested lost after a 1-pip spread.

Does the MT4 trailing stop work when the computer is off?

No. It is run by the terminal. When MT4 is closed or disconnected, the stop stays at its last level. Use a VPS if you trail overnight.

How many points is 20 pips in MT4?

On a 5-digit EURUSD quote, 200 points. On a 4-digit quote, 20 points.

Is a 20-pip trailing stop good?

On M5 EURUSD it lost 2.49 pips a trade on EMA entries and 0.74 on Stochastic entries, and on M15 it lost 2.26. It is too wide for a 5-minute chart.

Can MT4 trail a stop by ATR?

Not with the built-in menu, which only uses a fixed number of points. You need an EA or script, or move the stop by hand.