Dragging stops on chart to exit position

[biegea]

Hi,
Hopefully this is a dumb question with a simple answer, but this issue has plagued me for years and resulted in substantial excess loss.
When I am in a position, I will often want to see how price behaves at an area before deciding whether to hold or close the position. If I decide I want to close it, I would like to just drag my stop order(s) to the current or other side of the market and to make the position close. Unfortunately, that's not the behavior I get. Rather, I get the attached.
I do not want to hit the "Close" button on the DOM because that will also cancel other working orders. It's not feasible to drag targets because they are dispersed and it will take to long to drag each to the market to get out.
Thank you.

[NinjaTrader_ChristopherJ]

Hello biegea,

This error is expected when attempting to move a Sell Stop order above the market. To scale out of a position with your 'Active ATM Strategy' selected, set your order quantity to the desired value, then submit an order on the opposite side of the market.

When this order is executed, your position will be reduced and stops/targets will be adjusted to account for this change in position size.

We also have a video publicly available at the link below that goes over Scaling In and Out of an Active ATM Strategy.

https://youtu.be/bocOfeGJ3-I?list=PL3-s3qsUnfLQw4Ent-8wWeVYYjGUEYKym

Let me know if I may be of further assistance.

[biegea]

Thanks for the reply, chris. Unfortunately, this requires quite a few steps and is not suitable to quick decisions. If my price area holds, for example, I may want to add instead of exit. It's not going to be effective to take those step and be ready to exit, only to have to select a new ATM at the moment i see my level holding and then evaluate whether the market has moved too much in that time to hit the trade button. Can the behavior of the stop order not be adjusted to meet my needs? Is there no 'close' button that won't also cancel all other outstanding orders in place?

[NinjaTrader_ChristopherJ]

With the default settings you would not need to select the ATM Strategy since the active ATM should be selected automatically then just adjust the quantity to number of contracts you want to scale in or out with and submit your order such Market, Limit, etc.

Unfortunately there is not a setting to allow the Stop order to be moved like you have described without generating this error. Currently there is not an option to modify the Close button to only close a specific number of contracts however I have submitted your suggestion to our development team and will follow up as soon as a tracking number has been assigned.
.

[biegea]

Thanks, please let me know. A few more comments:

1. As I said, this has plagued me for years and it continues to.

2. I do not use the default setting you described above, because when I scale into a trade, I typically want my adds to use fresh ATM parameters and not be co-mingled with the prior entry's.

3. I'm not asking for a "Close button to only close a specific number of contracts" as you said above -- I'm looking for a Close button to close my existing position but NOT cancel other working orders (for example, other resting buy limits at lower support levels).

4. I'm not sure if you watched the video you referenced above, but it does not address anything whatsoever that we are discussing here. It is only and entirely about using FIFO or not.

Thank you.

[aslane]

I would concur with OP comments. It is a sign of a platform developed by non-traders when you have a lack of understanding why this is important.

When the order is dragged to other side, instead of an error, it should be changed to a market order. Having an option to allow/disallow this would be fine.