Taking profit in stages
A trade does not have to be all-or-nothing on the way out. A scale-out ladder sells part of the position at each of several targets — so you bank something early and still leave a runner on.
What each rung has
- A target — either a percentage from what you paid for the contract, or a dollar price on the stock. Every rung in one ladder uses the same one; you cannot mix them.
- An amount — a number of contracts, a percentage of the original position, or the rest.
- A trailing stop (optional) — where your stop-loss moves to once the previous rung fills. So it protects the run into the next target. Your general stop-loss covers the trade up to the first one.
- A price to sell at (optional) — the contract price that rung's sell is submitted at. Leave it blank and that rung sells at whatever the market is paying when the target hits.
The amounts have to add up
The rungs must close exactly what you opened. End with the rest, or make the fixed amounts add up to your position. Atlas refuses a ladder that would leave part of the position with nothing to close it — "8 contracts in, 6 + 1 out" is a mistake, not a setting.
A price you set is a price we send
If you put a price on a rung, that is what goes to your broker. Nothing moves it to follow the market. If the contract never reaches it, that rung simply does not sell and keeps waiting.
That is safe by design, not by accident: your stop-loss is always a market order, so the position stays protected however the take-profits are priced. A waiting rung is also cleared by a close time if you set one, or by Atlas itself if you have it reviewing the ladder.
Letting Atlas manage the ladder
Turn on the review and Atlas reconsiders the remaining targets each time a rung fills — it can move them, tighten the stop, or close the rest early if the reason for the trade has gone. It sees what it decided last time, so its thinking carries across the trade rather than restarting at each rung.
If you follow someone else's workflow, their review runs and its decision reaches you at the same moment — you trade your own amounts on their targets.