> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.vole.bot/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Time-based Stop Loss Tightening

> Pulls your stop closer to your entry if a trade has not moved far enough in your favour after a set number of candles.

> [!NOTE]
>
> This screen is part of the Vole Bot package.

**Time-based Stop Loss Tightening** cuts a slow loser short. If a trade has not moved far enough in your favour by the time a set number of candles have closed, the rule pulls your stop closer to your entry price. It acts once per trade, and it never moves your stop further away. Use it to stop a trade that goes nowhere from costing you the full distance to your original stop.

## When it acts

The rule counts whole candles from your entry and looks at the trade once, on the candle that closes when the count reaches **Wait this many candles**.

At that moment it asks three questions:

1. Has the trade's best price since entry already reached the level where the Chandelier would start trailing? That level is the **Start trailing after** value of your Chandelier Trailing Stop. If you do not use the Chandelier, the rule uses a small built-in profit level instead. If the trade has reached it, or the Chandelier is already trailing, the Chandelier is in charge and the rule does nothing.
2. If you filled in **Only tighten if best profit reached is at least**, is the best profit below it? If so, the rule does nothing.
3. Would the new stop be tighter than the stop you have now? The new stop sits **New stop distance** times ATR away from your entry price, on the losing side: below it for a long, above it for a short. If that is not tighter than your current stop, nothing changes.

If all three answers point to tightening, the stop moves. Whatever the answer is, the rule does not look at that trade again.

The new stop takes effect from the next candle. The candle that has just closed is not tested against it. If the price has already moved past the new stop by then, the position is closed at market.

Your exits are checked in a fixed order on each closed candle. The first one that fires closes the trade, and a stop that the candle has already reached comes first. See [Exit Rules](https://help.vole.bot/en/execution-rules/exit-rules.md).

On the policy and instance forms, the rule is listed under **Position Modifier** in the **Pro Exit Modules** list.

## Settings

| Label on the form | What it means | Unit and range |
| - | - | - |
| **Wait this many candles** | How many whole candles must close after your entry before the rule looks at the trade. | Whole candles, 1 to 10 |
| **New stop distance (× ATR)** | How far from your entry price the new stop sits, in multiples of ATR. ATR is the average distance candles have been moving lately. A small number puts the stop close to your entry. A large number leaves it far away, and if your current stop is already closer than that, nothing changes. | Multiples of ATR, from one tenth to two |
| **Only tighten if best profit reached is at least** | An extra condition. The trade's best profit since entry must be at least this much for the rule to tighten. Leave it blank for no extra condition. | Percent of your entry price, 0 to 100, or blank |

## Worked example

The numbers below are made up to show how the rule works. They are not typical or expected results.

You hold a long from an entry of 1000 on a made-up symbol. Your stop is at 980. Your Chandelier starts trailing at 1010. You set **Wait this many candles** to 3 and **New stop distance (× ATR)** to 1. ATR is about 10, so the new stop would sit at 990.

| Candle after entry | What happens |
| - | - |
| 1 | High 1004, close 1003. The count is 1. The rule waits. |
| 2 | High 1006, close 1001. The count is 2. The best price so far is 1006. |
| 3 | Close 998. The count is 3, so the rule looks. The best price, 1006, is short of 1010, so the Chandelier is not in charge. 990 is tighter than 980, so the stop moves to 990. |
| 4 | The low reaches 989. The new stop is in force from this candle, and it is hit. The trade closes around 990. |

In this made-up case the trade loses about 10 instead of as much as 20. In another case the same trade might have recovered, and the tighter stop would have ended it early. The rule trades a smaller maximum loss on slow trades for the chance that some of them would have come back.

![Four candles after a long entry at 1000. After candle 3 closes, the stop moves from 980 to 990, below the entry line and above the original stop. Candle 4 reaches 990 and the trade closes at the new stop.](https://mintcdn.com/vole-bot/FPSL8V4NlLCcmRfn/images/pro-exit/time-based-stop-loss-tightening.svg?fit=max\&auto=format\&n=FPSL8V4NlLCcmRfn\&q=85\&s=80c3f0d6bc073dc72eeaf4484973c017)

The stop moves from 980 to 990 after candle 3. Made-up numbers.

## Good to know

* Only whole candles count. The candle you entered part-way through does not count, so with a wait of 3 the rule looks after the third full candle, not the third candle you saw.
* The rule looks once. If the trade has already made enough profit when it looks, it never tightens that trade, even if the trade later turns.
* It never widens a stop. A stop that the Chandelier or you already placed closer than the new one stays where it is.
* When the tightened stop is hit, the closed trade shows the reason **Stop Loss**.


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