My TP/SL did not trigger

Take-profit and stop-loss orders trigger on the mark price, not the last traded price. That single fact explains most of what looks wrong.

​

It did not fire, but the price got there

The last trade reached your level. The mark price did not. Mark price is a smoothed reference, deliberately harder to move than the last print — precisely so a single trade cannot trigger stops across the venue. A wick on the chart that touches your level is not necessarily a mark price that touched it. Check the mark price history rather than the candle chart. See Mark price. Why it works this way: if stops triggered on last trade, one trader could push a thin book for a moment and harvest every stop below. Triggering on mark price makes that attack far more expensive.

​

It fired at a worse price than I set

The trigger price and the fill price are different things. Your trigger fires an order into the book. What that order gets is whatever liquidity exists at that moment. In a fast move, the book at your trigger price can be gone before your order arrives. A stop-loss is not a guaranteed exit price. It is a guaranteed attempt at the moment the trigger is reached. To bound it: use a stop-limit rather than stop-market, and accept the trade-off — a stop-limit will not fill at all if the market gaps past your limit, leaving you in the position you were trying to exit. Neither choice is free. See TP/SL.

​

It fired but the position is still open

The order was smaller than the position. A partial TP/SL closes part of it and leaves the rest. Something else consumed the size first. If you closed part manually, the remaining trigger may now exceed what is left.

​

It vanished

The position closed. A TP/SL attached to a position it no longer has is cancelled — including when liquidation got there first. The position flipped. A stop attached to a long is meaningless once you are short.

​

Liquidation reached it first

Your stop-loss is your order at your price. Liquidation is the protocol closing you when margin no longer covers the position, and it does not wait for your stop. If your stop is beyond your liquidation price, it will never fire — you will be liquidated first, at a worse outcome with a penalty. Check both numbers in the ticket before you rely on a stop: if your liquidation price sits between the current price and your stop, the stop is decorative.

​

When it is worth a ticket

Raise it if the mark price demonstrably crossed your trigger and nothing happened. Include the market, the trigger price and direction, the UTC time you believe it should have fired, the order ID, and what you observed instead. Send it to contact@intention.xyz.

​

Where to go next