Stopline Trade Manager › Guides

Breakeven in MT5 and MT4: four ways to move the stop to entry

By Brendon, a trader for 15 years and the maker of Stopline Trade Manager. Updated 19 October 2026.

Breakeven means moving the stop loss to the entry price, usually a few points past it to cover spread and commission. MetaTrader 5 and MetaTrader 4 have no breakeven function, manual or automatic: you type the new stop in the Modify dialog or drag the stop line. A trade panel does it in one press or automatically.

Four ways to move the stop to entry

The first two work in any MetaTrader terminal. The other two need an Expert Advisor such as a trade panel.

1. Type it in MetaTrader's Modify dialog

1. Open the list of positions with Ctrl+T: the Toolbox in MetaTrader 5, the Terminal window in MetaTrader 4. Select its Trade tab.
2. Right-click the position and choose Modify or Delete (MetaTrader 4: Modify or Delete Order). In MetaTrader 4 a double-click in the position's Stop Loss field opens the same window.
3. In the Stop Loss field, type the position's open price. For a buy, add the points you want past the entry; for a sell, subtract them.
4. Press Modify. The button stays unavailable while the new stop is too close to the current price for the broker; wait for the price to move further or choose a stop further away.

2. Drag the stop line on the chart

1. Open Tools › Options (Ctrl+O) and make sure Show trade levels is ticked on the Charts tab.
2. Press on the position's stop-loss level on the chart and drag it to the entry line.
3. Release the mouse button. The position modification window opens with the new level, so you can type the exact price; confirm with Modify. With One Click Trading on, the change is sent at once, without the window.

A dragged line lands where the mouse lets go, which is rarely the entry plus the offset you meant. Read the price before you confirm.

3. One press in a trade panel

Stopline Trade Manager and Stopline Trade Manager EZ both move the stop to the entry, plus your offset, with one press. The press acts on the positions you ticked in Manage mode, or on every position of the chart symbol when none is ticked. You can start it from:

• the Breakeven button in Manage mode on the Trade tab (EZ: on the trade page);
• the E key;
• Breakeven now in a position's menu: click the position's label on the chart;
• Breakeven now on the Breakeven tab (Stopline Trade Manager only).

4. Automatically at a trigger

MetaTrader has no automatic breakeven. Stopline Trade Manager moves the stop by itself once the trade has moved far enough in your favour. You choose the trigger in Activate by and Level on the Breakeven tab. The example: a buy at 1.10000, stop loss 1.09800 (200 points, 20 pips), take profit 1.10600.

Activate by	Level	Breakeven when the Bid reaches
Points from the entry	100	1.10100
RR: multiples of the initial risk	1.0	1.10200
Change %: price change from the entry	0.1	1.10110
% of the take-profit distance	50	1.10300

Enable turns it on for new positions, and the BE chip in the header lights up. Apply to and Apply switch it for positions that are already open; Auto breakeven in a position's menu switches it for one trade; the BE button on the stop-loss line decides it for the next trade before you enter. The EA checks the trigger while it runs: if the price passes it while the terminal is closed and comes back before the terminal runs again, the stop is not moved. Breakeven never moves a stop backwards.

The nearest built-in tool is MetaTrader's own Trailing Stop, in a position's context menu on the Trade tab. Once the profit reaches the distance you pick, it sets the stop that distance behind the price, which is about the entry, and then keeps following the price. It cannot stop at the entry, adds no offset, and runs in the terminal, not on the broker's server.

The offset: spread, commission and a plus

A stop exactly at the entry still loses money when it is hit. A buy opens at the Ask and closes at the Bid, so the spread is lost, and commission is charged on top. The offset puts the stop that many points past the entry, on the profit side.

Stopline Trade Manager has two offset modes and a plus. The same buy at 1.10000:

Offset	Setting	New stop loss
Fixed (points)	20 points, Plus 10	1.10030
Spread + commission	spread 12 points, commission worth 7 points, Plus 0	1.10019

Spread + commission takes the spread at the moment of the move and your commission per lot (Comm/lot on the Settings tab), converted to points, so a trade stopped at breakeven ends close to zero instead of slightly negative. Plus (pts) adds extra points of profit on top of either mode. In EZ the offset is a fixed number of points, set with the input Inp_BE_Offset.

When the broker refuses the new stop

Brokers do not accept a stop loss closer to the current price than the symbol's stop level, and do not accept changes inside the freeze level. Right after the entry the price is often still inside that distance, so a breakeven press can be refused. Both editions check the broker's distance first: if the breakeven level is still too close to the price, the position keeps its stop and a message says so. Press again once the trade has more room. Many MetaTrader 4 servers apply a stop level; the Info tab of Stopline Trade Manager shows it for the chart symbol.

When the terminal is off

Breakeven in a trade panel runs in the terminal, like MetaTrader's own Trailing Stop. Once the stop has moved, the new stop sits on the broker's server and protects the trade whether the terminal is open or not. A move that falls due while the terminal is closed, asleep or disconnected waits until the EA runs again. If you rely on automatic breakeven for trades you hold while away from the computer, keep the terminal running, for example on a VPS.

The exception is a position with hidden stops: there breakeven moves the hidden stop, which the broker never sees.

Breakeven in Stopline Trade Manager and EZ

EZ moves the stop to breakeven when you press for it, with a fixed offset in points. Stopline Trade Manager adds the automatic breakeven above, with four activation modes, the spread and commission offset, the plus, per-position switches and a line on the chart where breakeven will activate. Both work the same on MetaTrader 5 and MetaTrader 4.