Auto-Exit is a safety net you can attach to any active trade. You pick a level to get out at, and the bot watches the price for you and closes the whole position the moment that level is reached. You can shut your laptop and go to dinner — it still works, because the watching happens on your bot, not in your browser.

You'll find it on each active trade card on the Live Trades page, just under the trade's details.

It isn't an order at your broker

This is the important difference between Auto-Exit and a normal stop-loss or profit target.

A normal stop-loss and take-profit — the ones described in Modifying Stop-Loss & Take-Profit — are real working orders sitting at your broker, waiting to be filled. Auto-Exit is not. Nothing is placed, nothing is resting in the market, and nobody else can see your level. Your bot simply watches the live price and, when your level is reached, sends a normal market close.

That has two practical consequences:

• It stacks on top of your existing bracket. Your regular stop-loss and take-profit keep working exactly as they always have. Auto-Exit is an extra layer, not a replacement.
• It needs the market open to actually get you out. Since the exit is a market order sent at the moment your level is reached, it can only fill when the contract is tradeable. If the level is reached at a time your broker won't accept the order, the bot retries a few times and then tells you it gave up — with the position still open.

Four ways to set a level

When you arm Auto-Exit you first choose what your numbers mean:

Setting	What you type	Good for
Price	A price on the contract itself, like 3.50	"Get me out if this contract touches $3.50"
P&L $	A dollar profit or loss for the whole trade, like 400 or -250	"I'll risk $250 on this and I'm happy with $400"
P&L %	A percent gain or loss, like 50 or -25	"Take 50% and run; cut it at -25%"
Stock	A price on the stock, like 618.00	"Get me out if SPY gets to $618"

You can set a take-profit, a stop-loss, or both. Leave a box empty to skip that side.

Example

You're long two SPY calls filled at $2.40 each. You're comfortable risking about $250 on the trade and you'd be glad to take $400. Click + Auto-exit, switch the setting to P&L $, type 400 in the TP box and -250 in the SL box, and confirm. From then on the bot watches your live profit and loss and closes both contracts the moment it crosses either number — whether you're watching or not.

In the two P&L settings you can use a plus or minus sign, and both boxes accept either. That's deliberate: it lets you set a stop that's already in profit. Typing 100 in the SL box while using P&L $ means "if this trade ever gives back down to only +$100, get me out" — a way to lock in a win you've already earned.

Exiting on the stock price

The Stock setting is different from the other three: your numbers are prices on the stock, not on the option you're holding. That's usually how you were thinking about the trade in the first place — you bought calls because you had a view on SPY, so it makes sense to get out on a SPY price too.

Example

You're long the SPY $615 call. SPY is trading at $610.12. Switch the setting to Stock, put 618 in the TP box and 606 in the SL box, and confirm. Those are SPY prices. If SPY reaches $618 we sell your call; if SPY drops to $606 we sell it. What the option itself is worth along the way doesn't matter.

Which box gets the bigger number depends on what you're holding. On a call you're long, the stock going up makes you money, so your take-profit goes above the current price and your stop goes below it. On a put you're long it's the other way round. You don't have to work this out — while you're typing, the editor shows the stock's live price and which side each level belongs on:

SPY $610.12 · TP above · SL below

If you put a level on the wrong side, we won't arm it. Instead you'll get a message that names what you're holding and where the level has to go — for example: "SPY is trading at $610.12 right now, and this is a CALL you're long — it makes money when SPY goes up. A take-profit has to be above $610.12; you typed $605.00, so arming this would close the trade immediately. If you meant that as your stop, put it in the stop-loss box instead."

Tip

There's a second reason to use this setting. Some option contracts go quiet — the bid and ask drift far apart, or quotes stop coming altogether — and a level set on the contract's price can't be judged when that happens. The stock is almost always still trading normally, so a stock stop keeps protecting you when a contract-price stop can't. It's the sturdiest of the four.

While a stock level is armed, the card shows the live stock price next to the ticker, whether or not you've turned that on in Dashboard Settings. You asked us to watch a stock price, so you get to see it.

The same idea applied to getting in rather than out is Price-Triggered Entries.

Once it's armed

Your levels show up as a green TP chip and a red SL chip on the card.

Next to each chip are small ▲ / ▼ arrows — tap them to nudge that level up or down without reopening the editor. The step size follows your setting: one cent for Price, five dollars for P&L $, one percent for P&L %.

Use Edit to change the numbers or switch to a different setting, and Clear to switch Auto-Exit off entirely.

Your armed levels are also switched off automatically when the trade ends — whether it closed at your target, at your stop, by hand, or through Flatten All. A finished position never carries armed levels forward, so you can't inherit one from a trade you no longer hold.

It fires once. When a level is reached, the trade closes and Auto-Exit turns itself off. If you open a new position later, you arm it again.

It won't let you close yourself out by accident

If you try to arm a level the trade has already passed, the bot refuses it and tells you where the trade actually is right now. This is on purpose: typing 25 when you meant -25 in the P&L % box would otherwise flatten your position a second later. If you genuinely want out at the current price, use the Close button instead.

Adding to a position later

If you average into a trade after arming Auto-Exit, your levels stay correct. The bot re-checks them against your new blended cost every time, so a -25% stop still means "down 25% from what I actually paid" rather than getting stuck on your original entry price.

What it works on

Auto-Exit is available on standard single-contract trades, on multi-leg "runner" trades (where it closes every remaining leg at once), and on futures. It isn't offered on spread trades — a spread is priced as a combined net number whose profitable direction depends on how the spread was opened, so a single level would be ambiguous. Spreads keep their own Close controls.

Note

Auto-Exit is per-trade and personal to your account. It's separate from the Killswitch, which watches your whole day's profit and loss and can stop everything at once.

Tip

If you're new to this, the safest way to try it is on a paper trade first — see Paper Trading. Arm a level just above or below where the contract is trading, watch it fire, and you'll know exactly what to expect before you use it on real money.