Assuming I have a current position long 50 contracts, I place an order to buy another 100 contracts. I would like to attach a stoploss sell order to close the combined position of 150, but attached orders seem to coerce the stoploss to have quantity 100 to match the parent order. Can I attach a child order with a different quantity to the parent order? Is there another way to implement this? I basically just want order activation upon execution of another specific order, but it needs to be on the server side like an attached order. I have looked at order conditions, but the only thing related to order execution seems to be triggered by any trade on a specific contract. Any suggestions would be welcome!
1. set a stop loss for 50 on your current position 2. attach a stop loss for 100 to your 100 buy order
Always have a stop loss order in the market. That 50 contract order should be risked managed with stop loss from initiation.
This is true. You can do this in MT5,to attach a stop loss or(&)take profit to any orders. The stop loss or(&)take profit orders will be activated upon the execution of your first order.
If your current position of long 50 contracts didn't automatically create an associated stop loss, then you can just place a sell stop limit order of 50 contracts. Place this sell stop limit order at the same price as the stop loss of the 100 contracts. Most platforms will allow you to group the orders as well, in case you want the stop losses to trail.
Thanks for the replies everybody! I really am just interested in the specific functionality of custom attached orders. The example was only intended to illustrate a simple use case. If we change the situation to a position of long 50, followed by a sell order of -100, I then want a stoploss buy order of 50 to close. I know this can be split into two sells of -50 (to close) and -50 (to open, with an attached stoploss of 50), but this doubles the number of orders to manage and raises the potential of hitting minimum commissions for a trade. I am also fairly sure that I can alter the quantity of the child order after the parent order is filled, but I need the child order to be already set up with the correct closing quantity on the server before the parent is filled, in case of disconnection etc.