If you publish your own strategy, exit legs let you close a position in pieces instead of all at once — taking some profit early while letting the rest run.
They are off by default, and off is a perfectly good way to trade.
Off: all in, all out
With exit legs off, every trade you post is one position that closes in one go. You still get everything else:
- a stop and a target you set on each active trade
- Auto-exit, which closes the whole position for you when price reaches a level — even with your browser closed
- Auto Scale-In, which adds to the position when price reaches a level
- + Scale In, to average in by hand
Nothing happens automatically until you set a level. A trade with no stop and no target sits there until you close it.
On: closing in pieces
Turn exit legs on and you split the position into up to four parts. Each part gets its own size, target and stop, and each one comes off on its own when its target is hit.
Go to Strategy Settings and choose Turn on exit legs.
For each leg you set three things:
- Size — how much of the position this piece is, as a percentage. All your legs have to add up to 100%.
- Target — how far up you want price to go before this piece comes off.
+100%means the contract has doubled. - Stop — how far down before you cut it.
−50%means the contract has lost half its value.
A worked example
Say you post a trade on a contract at $1.00 and you set up two legs:
| Size | Target | Stop | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leg 1 | 50% | +75% | −50% |
| Leg 2 | 50% | +200% | −50% |
If the contract runs to $1.75, leg 1 hits its target and half the position comes off. The other half stays open. If it keeps going to $3.00, leg 2 comes off too and the trade is finished. If it turns around instead and falls to $0.50, whatever is still open stops out.
That's the whole idea: bank something real at the first target, keep a runner for the move that might keep going.
Tip
Use Split evenly to divide the position equally across your legs — it does the arithmetic so your sizes always land on 100%.
Which one should you use?
Neither is better. One leg is simpler and you decide when to get out. Multiple legs take a decision off your plate at the first target, at the cost of a smaller position if the trade really runs.
If you're not sure, start with it off. You can turn it on any time.
Note
Changing your legs affects your next trade. Anything already open keeps the structure it had when you posted it, so a change mid-trade never moves the goalposts on a position you're already managing.
Warning
Your legs are part of what you publish. People following you size their own positions off your structure, so if you're running legs, keep them consistent — changing the split between every trade makes you very hard to follow. See Complete Copy Trade Parity for how followers mirror your exits.