Skip to main content

Trailing stop

Roll your own trailing stop using track, a reactive sets, and a blocking wait. The CLI doesn't ship a one-shot trail verb because the right trailing behavior is too workflow-specific — this pattern is the canonical build. Use it for runners where you want the stop to ratchet up but never pull back.

Minimum viable​

track max @hi $last
sets @stop @hi -1%
wait @last < @stop
close

Three reactive pieces plus one terminator:

  1. track max @hi $last — ratchets @hi upward as $last ticks higher, never down.
  2. sets @stop @hi -1% — reactive definition: every time @stop is read, it re-evaluates as @hi - 1%.
  3. wait @last < @stop — blocks at 100 ms polling until last price drops under the trailing stop.
  4. close — flat the position.

Variations​

track min @lo $last
sets @stop @lo +1%
wait @last > @stop
close

Short-side mirror. track min ratchets downward; the stop sits 1% above the running low.

track max @hi $last
sets @stop @hi -1%
wait @last < @stop for=3s
close

Adds for=3s anti-fakeout. The condition has to hold continuously for 3 seconds before wait releases. Filters single-tick wicks.

track max @hi $pnl
sets @stop @hi -50
wait @pnl < @stop
close

Trail PnL instead of price. @hi ratchets on uPnL; stop is $50 under the high-water mark. Useful for close at + green workflows.

track max @hi $last
sets @stop @hi -1%
wait either (@last < @stop) or (price > 60000)
close

Combinator — exit on either the trail OR a hard take-profit ceiling. See Workflow → combinators.

alias trail "track max @hi $last; sets @stop @hi -1%; wait @last < @stop; close"
trail

Once you settle on a flavor, alias it so you can fire with one keystroke.

Gotchas​

  • track ratchets only on read. A wait @stop > 0 resolves it through the tracker and updates @hi at poll time, which is fine. But if nothing reads @hi between sessions, the high-water mark doesn't advance. The pattern above is self-driving because wait @last < @stop reads @stop → reads @hi → ratchets, every 100 ms.
  • sets (not set) is required for the stop. set @stop @hi -1% snapshots a single number at definition time and never updates. sets keeps the source literal and re-evaluates on every read.
  • echo @hi ratchets a tracker on read; print @hi does not. When you debug a trail manually with print, you're guaranteed not to advance the state — echo will. See Aliases & vars → track.
  • wait polls at 100 ms and times out at 30 s default. For trails that may run hours, set an explicit timeout=8h (cap is 10 m for sleep, but wait's ceiling is also 10 m — split into a repeat loop for longer runs).
  • Tracked + reactive vars are session-scoped. They don't persist across CLI restarts. Re-run the track/sets lines on startup, or alias the whole bundle.
  • If the position is already underwater when you start the trail, @hi initializes at the first read of $last — meaning a flash-crash entry followed by recovery will set the high at the recovery's peak, not at the entry. Use set @hi $entry first if you want the trail anchored to entry instead.