A trailing stop or shadow stop is a stop order whose price is automatically adjusted. If the market goes up the trailing stop will follow. If the market goes sideways or down the trailing stop will freeze at its current level until the market goes up again. The advantage of a trailing stop is that it locks in profits automatically.

A variant on the trailing stop is the break even stop. The platform will move your initial stop to a level slightly above your break-even price. At this point you can no longer lose on the trade and you can let the trade run longer.

This example shows a trailing stop. The initial stop level is chosen by the trader. When the market goes up the order follows it at the same distance. When the market goes down the stop freezes at its current level and is either triggered or will start to move up again should the market move up again.