A price level attached to a position at which the broker closes it automatically to realise a gain. Like the stop-loss it lives on the broker's server, and like the stop-loss it is decided before the trade is open.
also: TP, profit target, target
Updated
The price at which the trade is finished being right. It is the other half of the decision made at entry — the stop says how wrong you are willing to be, the target says how right is enough.
The target is where a strategy's edge is actually collected, and it is the number most often adjusted after the fact. Fixing it at entry is what makes the risk/reward ratio a claim rather than a story told afterwards, and it decides the shape of the equity curve as much as the entry rule does.
| Setting | Typical value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Ratio-based target | 1.5–3 × the stop distance | The most common EA formulation, because it makes the risk/reward explicit. |
| ATR multiple | 2–4 × ATR(14) | Adapts to volatility the same way an ATR stop does. |
| Mean-reversion target | the moving average or band midpoint | Distance varies per trade; the exit is a condition rather than a fixed number of pips. |
| Minimum distance from price | broker's stops level | A target closer than this is rejected, exactly like a stop that is too tight. |
| Partial close | 50% at 1R, remainder trailed | Reduces variance and, on most trend strategies, reduces expectancy along with it. |
The same entry, two target distances. Nothing about the signal changes — only how often the strategy has to be right for the arithmetic to work.
Target A wins far more often and gives most of it back in costs and in the losses that are the same size as the wins. Neither is better in the abstract — but they are not the same product.
Calculation 1 ÷ (1 + 1) = 50% · 1 ÷ (1 + 3) = 25%
Result Two strategies from one entry rule, needing very different hit rates
Read the target with the stop and with the realised results, not with the settings alone. What the EA achieved on average says more than what it was configured to aim for.
| Range | What it means |
|---|---|
| Average win well below the configured target | Something is closing trades early — a trailing stop, a time exit, or a target price the market keeps missing by a fraction. |
| Average win close to the target | The exit is doing what it says. The declared risk/reward is the one being traded. |
| Target within a few times the spread | Costs are a large share of every win. The strategy needs an exceptional hit rate to survive them. |
| No target, exit by trailing stop only | Legitimate for trend strategies, but the risk/reward cannot be declared in advance — it has to be measured from realised trades. |
mt5depot EA pages state the exit rule for each listing and publish the full trade ledger, so the average realised win can be checked against the target the description claims.
Extending a target because a trade is going well changes the ratio the trade was taken on. The honest risk/reward is the one that existed when the position opened; anything after that is a new decision being reported as the old one.
A target of a few pips will be hit most of the time. It is not a demonstration of skill — it is a description of how often price moves a small distance, and the rare large loss on the other side pays for all of it.
A long closes at the bid and a short at the ask. A target placed exactly at a round level can sit unfilled while the chart appears to have reached it, because the chart is showing the other side of the quote.
It depends on the return distribution. Mean-reversion strategies have a level price tends back to; trend strategies do not, and capping them at a fixed distance removes the few trades that pay for the rest.