Stop loss and take profit for bots on Deriv

A stop loss and take profit for bots are the two numbers you set before anything runs: the loss you are willing to accept for the session, and the profit at which you want the session to end. Set both in the Auto Trader before you press start, and the bot stops on its own when either one is reached. This post explains what each limit does, where it sits on screen, and what the account looks like the moment a limit is hit.

Trading loses money for many people. Limits do not change that. What they change is how far a bad run can go before something stops it.

The loss limit is the number you decide you can lose

The loss limit is a figure you enter before the session starts. As trades close, the Auto Trader adds up the result of the session. When the total loss reaches the figure you entered, it stops placing trades.

Pick that figure the way you would pick the cash you take to a place where you might not bring it home. It is not a prediction and it is not a budget you expect to spend. It is the point at which you would rather the session end than continue.

Two things make this number easier to set. The first is that it should be small enough that reaching it does not change your day. The second is that it should be a number you chose while calm, because you will not be calm after a run of losses. That is the entire reason the limit is typed in before the bot starts rather than after.

The target is the number that makes the bot stop while it is ahead

The take profit is the same idea pointed the other way. You enter a profit figure for the session. When the running total reaches it, the Auto Trader stops.

Traders skip this one more often than they skip the loss limit, because stopping while things are going well feels like leaving something behind. The problem is that a session with no upper end only stops on a loss limit or on a decision made in the moment, and decisions made in the moment are the ones that go wrong. A target ends the session on a rule instead.

Both figures do the same job from opposite ends. One decides how the session ends badly. The other decides how it ends well.

What happens on screen when a limit is hit

When either limit is reached, the Auto Trader stops placing new trades. Any contract already open runs to its own expiry, because a contract that is live belongs to Deriv and finishes the way Deriv's contract terms say it finishes. Nothing new is opened after that.

Your money stays where it has always been, in your own Deriv account. BancaBot never holds it. The permission you granted when you signed in with Deriv is trading only, which lets BancaBot read the account balance and place trades. It cannot withdraw and cannot move money.

Once the bot has stopped, the session is over until you start it again. That pause is the useful part. It is a gap between what just happened and whatever you do next, and it exists so that the next decision is not made with the last loss still stinging.

Limits belong to the session, not to the trade

It helps to keep two different things apart in your head.

• A contract has its own outcome. Deriv's contract types, such as rise and fall, higher and lower, and the digit contracts, settle according to their own terms when they expire.
• A session has a running total. The stop loss and take profit watch that total, across every trade the bot places, and end the session when it crosses either line.

So a limit does not reach into a live contract and close it early. It governs whether another one is opened. That distinction explains why the balance can move slightly after the bot has already stopped: the last open contract was still running.

Set the limits on a demo account first

Real and demo accounts both work, and the demo is the sensible place to set limits for the first time. On demo you can see the whole cycle end to end. Set a small loss limit, start the bot, watch it stop, and read the session total. Then set a target and watch it stop for the other reason.

What you are checking is not whether the numbers make you money. You are checking that you understand what the bot does when it reaches them, and that the figures you chose feel right when you see them actually arrive. A loss limit that looked reasonable typed into a box can feel very different when the session ends on it.

If you have not opened the accounts yet, the guide to creating a Deriv account covers opening, verifying and switching between real and demo.

Limits for bots you build yourself

The same thinking applies to bots built in Bot Forge. A block based bot runs the logic you gave it, and it will keep running that logic through a losing run exactly as willingly as through a winning one. If the bot has no block that stops it, nothing stops it except you.

This matters most for anything that increases stake after a loss. A staking rule that grows can reach numbers you did not picture when you built it, and it reaches them fastest at the worst moment. Before you run a bot on a real account, find out what its largest possible stake is and decide whether you would accept losing it.

Bot files from the older builders load into Bot Forge, so an existing bot can be opened, read and changed before it runs anywhere near real money.

What to do next

Open the Auto Trader on a demo account, set a loss limit and a target you have actually thought about, and watch what happens when one of them is reached.