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The Time Stopif it has not worked yet, it is not going to

Evidence: ModerateBeginnerExit · Time

Close the position after a fixed number of bars, whatever it is doing. No level, no indicator — just the clock.

It sounds crude and it is one of the more useful rules in this book, because almost every edge in the library has a horizon. A liquidity sweep is supposed to resolve in hours. A news reaction is supposed to resolve in minutes. Once the horizon has passed, you are no longer holding the trade you analysed; you are holding a random position with a spread attached.

This page is an exit method, not a trade. Attach it to any entry in the library and test the pair together — an exit tested against one entry tells you almost nothing about how it behaves with another.

Applies to
Any entry with a defined horizon — reversion, news, session and sweep entries especially
Timeframe
Any · the bar count is set by the entry's own horizon
Best suited to
Short-horizon effects where the edge is known to decay
Worst suited to
Trend entries, where the horizon is open-ended by design
Tools
A bar counter. That is the whole implementation.

Valid setup

EX-05 · THE TIME STOP — THE SAME TRADE, EXIT FIVE EURUSD · H1 · out at the close of the eighth bar, whatever the position is doing LONG 1.0791 1.0827 1.0864 1.0901 1.0938 1.0974 1.1011 THE HORIZON — eight bars, set by what the entry claims NOT THIS STRATEGY'S TRADE ANY MORE result at the time stop 1R — the price stop still applies ENTRY EXIT = close of bar 8, profit or not PRICE STOP — unchanged, whichever fires first 1 2 3 bar 0 bar 8 1.0842 1.0875 1.0833 ① Entry — the count starts at this close ② Bar eight: out at market, no discretion ③ The price stop was never removed ④ Yes, the move continued afterwards ⑤ That continuation is outside the tested horizon ⑥ Holding for it is a different strategy, untested

Exact rules

When it applies

  • Set the count from what the entry claims. If the reason for the trade is a five-bar reversion, the time stop is five bars — not twenty because twenty tested better.
  • Start counting at the entry bar's close.
  • The time stop fires regardless of open profit or loss. A trade that is slightly up at bar five and still open at bar twenty is a different trade.
  • It never widens. Extending the count because the position is close to the target is the whole problem it was built to solve.

If it goes wrong

  • The price stop stays exactly where it was. The time stop is an additional exit, not a replacement.
  • Whichever fires first ends the trade.
  • Expect a large share of exits to be small losses and small wins. That is what a time stop produces and it is not a malfunction.

The exit rule

  • Exit at the market at the close of the Nth bar.
  • Measure the distribution of outcomes by bar number on your own data — you will usually find a bar after which the average result flattens, and that is where the count belongs.
  • A time stop is the cheapest way to stop an intraday strategy quietly becoming a swing strategy, which is how most of them die.

Build The Time Stop

Reading this page is free and always will be. Taking it is what costs — the complete MQL5 for the rules above, yours to keep, permanently. Five of them cost $10 and they never expire.

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Trading carries risk and most retail accounts lose money. Nothing on this page is financial advice or a recommendation to trade. The chart is an illustration of the rules on constructed candles — it is not a record of a trade and not a backtest.