The Trail: Arm, Floor, Chase

The system's exit philosophy has one radical feature: there is no fixed take-profit waiting to cap the trade. TP1 is a banking objective, not the exit thesis (next lesson). The primary winner-exit is a trailing stop with a three-part structure.

1 — ARM

The trail does not exist at entry. It activates only after price has moved a defined distance in your favor — a tighter threshold in chop, a wider one in trend. Before that threshold, your original SL is the only stop. Why: trailing from the entry print gets you wicked out of every winner before it becomes one.

2 — FLOOR

The moment the trail arms, the stop jumps to a locked floor in profit — a level below current price but above entry. From this moment the resting stop sits in positive territory: barring abnormal slippage, the trade has stopped being able to close red. That conversion — paper win into protected win — buys you the psychological freedom for step three.

3 — CHASE

From there, the stop follows the best price reached, at a set distance behind the peak — tight in chop, looser in trend and explosive. The stop only ever moves in your favor. It ratchets; it never retreats.

LONG example (illustrative numbers only — not desk tuning):
entry 100.00, SL 99.20
price hits 100.75          → trail ARMS, stop jumps to FLOOR 100.30
price runs to 101.60       → CHASE: stop follows a set % behind peak → 101.35
price pulls back to 101.35 → stopped OUT with the move banked

Two rules make or break this in live hands:

Bar-close only. The trail updates on confirmed closes, never on mid-bar ticks. Mid-bar trail management is how a wick converts your discipline back into emotion.

Never widen. The chase distance was chosen at entry by regime. Widening it mid-trade because "it looks strong" is the same hand that moves stops — you know that hand from the core arc.