How to Set a Stop Loss on Fidelity: Stop, Stop Limit, and Trailing Stop Orders (2026 Guide)

To set a stop loss on Fidelity, open a sell order for the shares you own, change the order type to stop loss (or stop limit, or one of the two trailing versions), give it a stop price below the current market, and set the time in force to Good 'til canceled if you want it working past today. On Fidelity.com that all happens in the trade ticket you open from Trade in the top menu; in Fidelity Trader+ you can also right-click the chart and drop a sell stop at the price under your cursor.

The clicks take a minute. What costs money is the fine print, and Fidelity's is specific: stops are watched only during the regular session, a trailing stop in percent must be a whole number between 1 and 30, a GTC order dies after 180 days, and a triggered stop loss becomes a market order that fills wherever the next trade prints. This guide covers the steps on each Fidelity platform, then trailing stops, brackets, options, trading hours, a worked example of where the stop goes, and the fills that surprise people.

Where you can set a stop loss on Fidelity

Fidelity has more order-entry screens than most brokers, and they are mid-transition.

• Fidelity.com, the standard website. You open a trade ticket from Trade in the top navigation.
• The Fidelity mobile app, for orders placed from your phone.
• Fidelity Trader+, the active-trader family, which comes as Trader+ Web, Trader+ Desktop, and Trader+ Mobile. Fidelity's Active Trader Pro transition page says Trader+ Desktop runs on 64-bit Windows and macOS and that Active Trader Pro will be sunset in 2027. Your orders, positions, and watchlists carry over when you switch; your ATP charts do not and have to be rebuilt.

All of them place orders into the same account, so a stop entered on the website shows up in Trader+ and the app. Pick the screen that suits how you trade and learn the rules once, because the rules come from Fidelity's order handling and stay the same whichever screen you use.

Fidelity stop loss vs stop limit: what happens at the trigger

Fidelity offers two plain stop types and two trailing ones. The difference between them is what the order turns into when the stop price is hit.

A stop loss order sits dormant until the stop price is reached, then becomes a market order. Fidelity's order types FAQ says execution at the stop price is not guaranteed and that news or market conditions can produce a fill "far from the stop price." A sell stop must be entered below the current market price and a buy stop above it.

A stop limit order becomes a limit order at the trigger. It can fill "in whole, in part, or not at all," in Fidelity's words. You control the worst price you accept, and you give up the certainty of getting out.

Two details in that FAQ explain a lot of confused threads about Fidelity stops:

• What counts as a trigger. For stocks, Fidelity triggers stop orders off a round-lot trade of 100 shares or more, or a print in the security. Market centers may also put price bands around the national best bid and offer to stop one erroneous trade from firing a pile of stops.
• Not every security or session takes stops. Specialists and market makers can refuse stop orders in some conditions, and Fidelity says not all securities or sessions, pre-market and after-hours included, are eligible for stop orders.

FINRA has weighed in on which one should be the default. In Regulatory Notice 16-19, its guidance to brokers on stop orders, FINRA said firms "should consider making stop limit orders the default type of stop order." The same notice states the cost of that choice plainly: a limit order brings "the possibility that the order will not be executed at all."

A rule of thumb that holds up:

• A liquid stock where getting out matters more than the exact price: stop loss.
• A thin stock with a wide spread, where a market order could fill badly: stop limit, with the limit set far enough below the stop that a normal fast move still fills.
• A position already in profit that you want to let run: trailing stop, covered below.

How to set a stop loss on Fidelity.com, step by step

Fidelity's own walkthrough of how to trade stocks and ETFs gives the base flow for every order. A stop loss follows it with two fields changed.

1. Log in and select Trade in the top navigation bar.
2. Select the account that holds the shares.
3. Look up the symbol.
4. Set the action to Sell.
5. Enter the quantity. For a full stop loss that is every share you hold; for a partial one, the number you want protected.
6. Choose the order type: stop loss, stop limit, trailing stop loss, or trailing stop limit. Enter the stop price (and the limit price, for a stop limit), or the trail amount for a trailing order.
7. Choose the time in force: Day, or Good 'til canceled.
8. Select Preview order, check every field, and select Place order.

Check the preview hard. A buy stop entered by mistake triggers as the stock rises and adds to your position, and a Day order on a swing trade expires at the close and leaves the shares unprotected tomorrow. Once placed, the order appears under Activity & Orders, where you can cancel or change it.

How to set a stop loss on the Fidelity mobile app

Fidelity's public help pages do not publish a separate stop-loss walkthrough for the mobile app, so here is what we can say without guessing at menu names. The app's order ticket asks for the same things as the website: the account, buy or sell, the quantity, the order type, and the time in force, followed by a review screen. Start from the stock's quote or your position, choose to sell, then look for the stop types in the order type list.

The order-handling rules above and below apply to an app order exactly as they do to a website order, because Fidelity holds and triggers the order the same way. If a trailing or conditional type you need does not appear in the app, place it on Fidelity.com or Trader+ and it will still show in the app's order list.

How to set a stop loss on Fidelity Trader+

Trader+ gives you two faster routes. Both come from Fidelity's Trader+ Web and Desktop webinar transcript.

From the Trade menu. In Trader+ Desktop, open Trade. It defaults to Stocks, with tabs for Options and for conditional trade tickets. The conditional tickets include a Sell bracket (for a position you already hold), a Buy + Sell bracket (enter and protect in one ticket), a Buy to cover bracket for shorts, and one triggers the other. In the webinar's example, a trader buys one share of SPY at market, sets a limit order to sell above, and puts a stop somewhere below.

From the chart. Right-click on the chart at the price you want. Trader+ offers a buy limit or a sell stop at that level, or a blank new order. This is the fix for a complaint that shows up in r/stocks threads about Fidelity: a swing trader wanted to "place stop loss orders" and "easily move all my orders by clicking on a chart view," which that poster could not do on the Fidelity website.

Working orders sit on the orders page, where Trader+ lets you cancel, replace, duplicate, or create opposite. Replace reopens the same ticket with your order loaded, which is the cleanest way to move a stop up under a new swing low without cancelling and retyping it.

Trader+ Web also draws support and resistance and flags patterns on the chart, which the webinar presenter points to as a place to decide "where we put some stops in." Treat those lines as candidates to check, the same as any automated level.

How to set a trailing stop on Fidelity

A trailing stop has no fixed price. You set a trail amount in dollars or percent, and the stop follows the stock up while staying put when it falls. Fidelity's trailing stop explainer lists four versions: trailing stop loss in dollars, trailing stop loss in percent, trailing stop limit in dollars, and trailing stop limit in percent. The loss versions become market orders when triggered; the limit versions become limit orders.

The rules that decide whether your order is accepted:

• Eligible securities: listed and over-the-counter stocks, plus single-leg options. Options can trail in dollars only.
• Dollar trails cannot go past two decimal places.
• Percent trails must be whole numbers from 1% to 30%. A 2.5% trail will be rejected; use 2% or 3%, or switch to a dollar trail.
• What the stop trails: the last trade (the default, based on round lots of 100 shares or more), the bid, or the ask.
• Hours: trailing stops are not available in pre-market or after-hours trading.

For a sell trailing stop, the trigger rises as the stock rises and never falls back, even when price drifts sideways or down. Fidelity's FAQ gives a short example: you buy at $25, the stock rises to $27, and you set a $1 trail. The stock peaks at $29, so the trigger is $28, and the shares sell when the price comes back to $28. A second Fidelity explainer uses bigger numbers: bought at $30, now at $40, a $3 trail puts the stop at $37, which locks in a potential $7 of the $10 gain if it fills there.

Here is the same mechanic over eleven sessions of an illustrative trade, with made-up numbers. You bought at $82.50 and set a $3.00 trailing stop loss off the last trade.

Line chart of an illustrative 11-day trade with a 3 dollar trailing stop. Price goes 82.50, 84.00, 85.80, 85.10, 87.40, 89.00, 88.20, 90.60, 89.50, 88.10, 87.60. The trailing stop steps up from 79.50 to 81.00, 82.80, stays at 82.80 on day 4, rises to 84.40, 86.00, holds at 86.00 on day 7, rises to 87.60 on day 8, and stays at 87.60 until price falls to it on day 11, triggering the sale about 5.10 above the 82.50 entry.

Dollar or percent? A $3.00 trail stays $3.00 whether the stock is at $82 or $120. A 4% trail on the same stock starts at $3.30 and widens to about $3.62 at the $90.60 peak, so it gives a rising stock a little more room. For most swing trades the better question is how far the stock normally swings against you. If it routinely pulls back $2.50 inside a healthy trend, a $1 trail will sell you on noise, and the trailing stop loss guide covers sizing the trail from ATR and the cases where trailing backfires.

Two Fidelity-specific cautions. Trailing off the bid in a stock with a wide spread can trigger on a quote flicker that no trade confirmed. And because trailing orders are held on Fidelity's internal order file until they trigger, they are exposed to what Fidelity's disclosures call trigger processing, market data, and "other internal and external system factors." That is Fidelity saying the order depends on its systems working at the moment it matters.

Stop loss and take profit together: OCO and OTOCO on Fidelity

Two separate orders, a stop below and a limit above, create a trap: if the target fills, the stop keeps working against shares you no longer own, and a later drop can trigger it into a short sale. Fidelity's conditional orders fix this. The rules below come from the FAQ and Fidelity's conditional orders disclosure.

• One-cancels-the-other (OCO): two live orders, and when one executes Fidelity attempts to cancel the other. Use it to bracket a position you already hold. Both orders must have the same time in force. Buying power is calculated from the more expensive of the two. A partial fill on one leg starts an attempt to cancel the other, and the disclosure warns that in volatile conditions both orders can execute.
• One-triggers-the-other (OTO): a primary order that, once filled, releases a secondary. Cancelling the primary cancels the secondary; cancelling the secondary leaves the primary open.
• One-triggers-a-one-cancels-the-other (OTOCO): an entry that, once filled, releases a stop and a target as an OCO pair. The two exits must share a time in force; the entry can differ.

The 180-day clock catches people with GTC brackets. Fidelity counts it from when you place the whole order. If the primary fills on day 40, the disclosure says, the secondary is good for only the remaining 140 days. An entry that sits unfilled for months leaves you a short-lived stop once it finally fills.

Retirement accounts get one extra safeguard: Fidelity runs a price-reasonability check on OCO orders there to help prevent both legs from filling in a fast market. The FAQ says that check does not exist in nonretirement accounts.

The disclosure adds one more limit worth knowing before you set a far-off target: a secondary order that is more than about 30% away from the market when it is released may be cancelled, depending on where it is routed.

Stop losses on options at Fidelity

You can place a stop on an option contract, but the trigger works differently from a stock's. Per the FAQ, a sell stop on an option triggers when the ask is at or below your stop price or the option trades there, and a buy stop triggers when the bid is at or above it or the option trades there. Because option spreads can be wide, a quote moving for a few seconds can set off a stop while the underlying stock has barely moved.

Fidelity's options trading help page adds more limits:

• Stop loss orders on equity options are accepted between 9:30 a.m. and 3:55 p.m. ET.
• Option stops can trigger "with little movement in the underlying stock," can fill outside the current bid and ask, and can be cancelled without notification.
• Fidelity recommends avoiding stop orders on expiration Friday for options expiring that day.
• Trailing stops on single-leg options must use a dollar trail.

Short options are where this hurts most. In an r/thetagang thread, a trader who sold a SPY put for a $1.00 credit wanted to buy it back automatically if it reached $1.60, a 60% loss. The top reply pointed to a buy-to-close stop limit at $1.60 and added a warning: "Stops are bad for short options, because a sudden increase in volatility" can push the option's price up without the stock moving much. A stop limit caps what you pay to close; in a fast spike it may not fill, and the position stays open.

One alternative is to trigger the exit from the stock price instead of the option premium. Fidelity's contingent orders watch a trigger such as last trade, bid, ask, or a percent change on a stock, an index, or an option contract, and release a market, limit, stop loss, or trailing stop loss order when the condition is met. Before relying on a contingent order to close an option, build it in the ticket and confirm the trigger and the order are the ones you meant, because the disclosure warns a triggered order can be rejected if its price ends up too far from the market.

Trading hours and time in force: when a Fidelity stop is watching

Fidelity's trailing stop learning page states the window: trailing stops are held on a separate internal file, on a "not held" basis, and monitored only between 9:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. ET. The conditional orders disclosure says the same for conditional orders. Outside that window a trailing or conditional order is not being watched at all.

The time-in-force choices for stock orders, from the FAQ:

• Day: expires at 4:00 p.m. ET by default. You can pick an earlier expiration between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. in 30-minute steps, which is useful for a day trader who wants a stop gone before the last half hour.
• Good 'til canceled (GTC): available for stocks and ETFs, it lasts up to 180 calendar days from entry unless it fills or you cancel it. It is not available for short sales.
• Fill or kill: not allowed with stop loss or stop limit orders.

Trader+ has a Day+Extended choice in the trade ticket's Details filter for extended-hours orders, but that does not extend a stop. A trader on r/Daytrading asked exactly this: "there doesn't seem to be an option to enter a stop loss during pre-market hours." There is not. One reply gave the practical answer: that commenter decided pre- and after-market trading was not worth the risk, because "I'd rather be able to set a stop loss and take myself out of the equation."

The close carries its own risk. Fidelity's disclosure says conditional and trailing stop orders triggered "just prior to, or near market close may not execute," and a Day order that does not execute that session is gone. FINRA's notice also suggests brokers consider "restricting the time of day during which a stop order may be triggered," because the open and close are when stops misfire most.

What this means for a held position: if a company reports at 4:05 p.m. and the stock falls 12% after hours, your Fidelity stop does nothing that evening. At 9:30 the next morning it triggers and becomes a market order near wherever the stock opens. And a GTC stop you placed in spring can expire quietly in autumn, so check the expiration date when you review the trade.

Where to put the stop: a worked example

The price you type matters more than the screen you type it on. Here is an illustrative example with made-up numbers, chosen to show the method.

You have a $40,000 account and risk 1% per trade, so $400. A stock pulled back into a support zone, made a swing low at $79.10, held there for two sessions, and turned up. You plan to buy 100 shares at $82.50.

1. Anchor the stop to structure. The swing low at $79.10 is where the trade idea is wrong. Put the stop half a dollar under it, at $78.60, so a brief poke below the low does not take you out. Our guide on where to place a stop loss covers the other anchors, like ATR and the prior day's low.
2. Size from the stop distance. $82.50 minus $78.60 is $3.90 a share. $400 divided by $3.90 is 102 shares; round down to 100, a risk of $390. A wider structural stop means fewer shares. Do not pull the stop closer to fit a bigger position.
3. Set the target from the chart. The prior swing high sits at $90.30, $7.80 above entry, twice the risk.
4. Enter it as one order. On Fidelity.com, an OTOCO: buy limit at $82.50, then an OCO of a sell stop loss at $78.60 and a sell limit at $90.30, with both exits on GTC. In Trader+ Desktop, the Buy + Sell bracket ticket does the same.

Line chart of an illustrative 12-day price path. Price falls from 84.60 to a low of 79.30 on day 5, just above the 79.10 swing low, then climbs to 82.50 on day 8 where the trade is entered, and reaches 86.40 by day 12. Dashed horizontal lines mark the stop loss at 78.60, the entry at 82.50, and the take profit at 90.30 at the prior swing high.

If the trade works and price clears $87, you might switch the protective leg to a trailing stop to let it run past the target. The straightforward way on Fidelity is to cancel the OCO pair and place a trailing stop loss for the 100 shares. Do it during market hours, and confirm the cancellation shows before placing the replacement; Fidelity handles cancel requests on a best-efforts basis, and the FAQ tells you to confirm a cancel before entering a new order.

The 1% risk figure is a common starting point. The full reasoning, including how losing streaks compound at different risk levels, is in our risk management guide. None of this makes the trade more likely to win. It makes the loss a known size when it does not.

When a Fidelity stop loss fills somewhere you did not expect

The FINRA notice describes the basic problem: once triggered, a stop becomes a market order, and execution "may be at a significantly different price from the stop price if the market is moving rapidly." It adds a point people rarely consider. A customer "may sell at an undesirable price even though the price of the stock may stabilize during the same trading day," and sell stops firing together "may add downward price pressure" on the stock.

Apply that to the worked example. You hold through an earnings report and the stock opens at $75.20.

Bar chart of the loss on 100 shares bought at 82.50 in three illustrative cases: the planned stop fill at 78.60 loses 390 dollars, a stop loss filled at a 75.20 gap open loses 730 dollars, and an unfilled stop limit with the stock later at 73.00 leaves an open loss of 950 dollars.

The stop loss did its job by getting you out, but it could not get you out at $78.60 because nothing traded between the close and the open. A stop limit at $78.60 with a $78.00 limit avoids selling at $75.20, and it leaves you holding a falling stock with no exit order working.

The other fills that get posted as complaints:

• "Price did not reach my stop." An r/Daytrading poster wrote that their stop filled though "price did not reach my stop loss," and that "Fidelity just kind of decides if, when, and what price it's going to fill." The reply that helped: check what the stop is triggering off. A trailing stop can trail the bid or ask, and a chart of last trades will not show a bid that dipped to your trigger. Fidelity's disclosure also admits that "it is possible for an order to be triggered by an erroneous trade or print," even with the verification process and price bands in place.
• Thin trading. In a low-volume stock, the next round-lot trade after your trigger can print well below it.
• The open and the close. Fidelity's disclosure warns that conditional and trailing stop orders "may trigger and/or execute at a price significantly different from your current stop price" during volatility, "especially at market open and market close."
• Stale quotes. The FAQ notes that quotes labeled real time can be stale. A stop placed off a frozen quote may sit on the wrong side of the market.

The defenses are partial. Size the position so the gap case is survivable, decide before earnings whether you are holding through the report, and use a stop limit only where you would rather keep the shares than sell at any price.

Common mistakes

• Leaving the stop on Day. It expires at 4 p.m. and tomorrow the position has no stop. Use GTC, and note the 180-day expiry in your calendar.
• A stop and a target as two loose orders. If the target fills, the stop is still live and can sell shares you no longer hold. Link them with OCO, or enter the trade as an OTOCO.
• A percent trail with a decimal. Fidelity accepts whole numbers from 1% to 30%. Use a dollar trail if you need finer control.
• A percentage trail on an option. Options trail in dollars only.
• Expecting a stop to protect you after hours. Fidelity watches trailing and conditional orders from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET. Plan around earnings and overnight news.
• A stop limit with the limit a cent under the stop. On any real gap it will not fill. Leave room, or use a stop loss.
• Option stops on expiration Friday. Fidelity recommends against them for contracts expiring that day.
• Replacing a stop without confirming the cancel. You can end up with two sell orders working, or none. Use Replace in Trader+, or confirm the cancel in Activity & Orders first.
• Widening the stop after entry. That raises the risk you sized for. Moving it closer, or up as the trade works, is fine.

FAQ

How do I set a trailing stop loss on Fidelity? Open a sell order for the shares, pick trailing stop loss (or trailing stop limit) as the order type, and enter a trail in dollars or a whole-number percent from 1% to 30%. Choose whether it trails the last trade, the bid, or the ask, set the time in force, preview, and place it.

What is the difference between a stop loss and a stop limit on Fidelity? A stop loss becomes a market order at the trigger and almost always fills, though possibly well below your stop price. A stop limit becomes a limit order and fills only at your limit or better, so it may fill partly or not at all.

Can I set a stop loss and a take profit at the same time on Fidelity? Yes. Use an OCO order for a position you already hold, or an OTOCO to enter and bracket the trade in one ticket. In Trader+ Desktop, the Sell bracket and Buy + Sell bracket tickets do the same thing. Both exit legs need the same time in force.

Does a Fidelity stop loss work in pre-market or after hours? Do not count on it. Fidelity says not all sessions are eligible for stop orders, trailing stops are not available pre-market or after hours, and a trader asking on r/Daytrading found no way to enter a stop pre-market. Fidelity monitors trailing and conditional orders between 9:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. ET.

How long does a GTC stop loss last at Fidelity? Up to 180 calendar days from when you entered it. For a conditional order, the 180 days count from placing the whole order, so a secondary released on day 40 has 140 days left.

Why did my Fidelity stop trigger when the chart never touched my price? Check the trigger. Stock stops trigger off round-lot trades or a print, trailing stops can trail the bid or ask, and Fidelity says an erroneous print can trigger an order. A chart of last trades does not show every quote.

Can I put a trailing stop on options at Fidelity? Yes, on single-leg options, with a dollar trail only. Option stop loss orders are accepted from 9:30 a.m. to 3:55 p.m. ET, and Fidelity recommends avoiding stops on expiration day.

Does a stop loss guarantee my exit price on Fidelity? No. Fidelity's FAQ says execution at the stop price is not guaranteed. A stop limit caps the price but may not fill.

From the chart to the order ticket

Every step above assumes you already know the price. That number comes from the chart, at the level where the trade idea stops being true. Quant AI reads a chart screenshot and marks the support and resistance levels it finds, which gives you candidate stop and target prices to check before you type them into Fidelity. Whether a level is real and how many shares to buy are still your decisions, and no stop on any platform removes gap risk.