Bracket & Cover Orders for Every Broker

An AutoTrader bracket order (AT_BO) is an order with a target and a stop-loss attached to it. An AutoTrader cover order (AT_CO) is the same thing with a stop-loss only, and no target.

They do the job your broker’s bracket and cover orders do — but they work on every broker we support. Your entry is sent to the broker as an ordinary intraday order, and AutoTrader Web watches the price and closes the position for you when your level is reached. Brokers that do not offer bracket orders, or whose version keeps failing, are exactly why this exists.

Try it

Drag the price and watch what happens to the stop-loss. The numbers behave exactly as they will on a real order.

The thing worth noticing: when the price falls back, the stop-loss does not. It only ever moves in your favour, one step at a time.

Why your broker may not offer a bracket order

If you came here looking for the bracket order in your broker’s platform and could not find it, you are not doing anything wrong. Many Indian brokers withdrew bracket orders in 2020 and never brought them back. Others still offer them, but only in some segments, only on some contracts, or only in their own app and not through the interface we connect to.

Two things happened at once.

The order type had a real flaw. A broker’s bracket order works by parking two live orders at the exchange — your target and your stop-loss — and cancelling one when the other fills. In a fast move, the price can trade at both levels before that cancellation goes through, so both fill. Instead of being flat, you are left holding a fresh position in the opposite direction that you never asked for, sometimes minutes before the close. That is the reason brokers gave when they switched the order type off.

The margin advantage disappeared. Bracket orders used to come with extra intraday leverage, and that was most of their appeal. A change in margin rules in 2020 removed the difference, so the order type kept its risk and lost its reward.

How ours avoids that specific problem

An AutoTrader bracket order does not park anything at the exchange. We watch the price and send one closing order when a level is reached. There is no second resting order that could fill behind your back — so the failure that made brokers withdraw the order type cannot happen here. If one move passes both your target and your stop-loss, we treat it as the stop-loss, because that is the safer reading for you.

What we cannot remove is the market risk underneath: a price that gaps past your level still exits at a worse price, and no bracket order from anyone changes that. That is point 1 in Four things to know, and it is worth reading before you place your first one.

Which brokers can I use this on?

All of them. An AutoTrader bracket or cover order works on every broker we support, because your entry reaches the broker as an ordinary intraday order — the one thing every broker accepts.

It is most useful where your broker’s own version is missing. AutoTrader Web places every order through your broker’s trading API, and that is not always the same as what the broker’s own app offers. Going by what each API accepts, there is no bracket order on Zerodha, Upstox, Groww, Motilal Oswal, Choice or Sharekhan, and no cover order on Angel One, Groww, Motilal Oswal, Choice or Sharekhan — though the Groww app and website have had a bracket order for F&O since January 2026. AT_BO and AT_CO work on every one of them.

A broker’s app can offer more than its API does. Every Groww user can place that F&O bracket order by hand, inside the Groww app or website. The trading API is a separate thing, and it still accepts only ordinary market, limit and stop-loss orders — so an automated bracket order on a Groww account has to be an AT_BO. Upstox is the same story the other way round: its cover order is still described in the documentation, but the current order interface no longer accepts one. If you are automating, go by what the API accepts, not by what you can tap in the app.

Where your broker does offer one — Fyers, Dhan, Kotak, Nuvama, AliceBlue, Mastertrust, SAS Online and the brokers on the Symphony XTS platform — ours is still worth using when you want a trailing stop that behaves the same everywhere, when you want to change your levels after placing, or when you trade several brokers and want one set of rules across all of them.

Broker positions change, and the detail is kept up to date on the broker API comparison.

Target, stop-loss and trailing, in plain words

You give three numbers, and each one is rupees away from your entry price — not a price.

You set	What it means	On a buy filled at ₹100
Target	How much profit closes the trade	Target 10 closes at ₹110
Stop-loss	How much loss closes the trade	Stop-loss 10 closes at ₹90
Trailing step	How far the stop moves each time the price advances by that much	Trailing 2 moves the stop up ₹2 at a time

If you are selling, everything mirrors: the target is below your entry and the stop-loss is above it.

For an option, these are rupees on the option premium — the thing you are actually buying and selling — not on the index or the stock behind it.

How the trailing stop-loss moves

The stop-loss keeps the same distance behind the best price you have seen, and it moves in whole steps. Buy at ₹100 with a stop-loss of 10 and a trailing step of 2:

Best price so far	Your stop-loss
₹100	₹90
₹101	₹90 — not a full step yet
₹102	₹92
₹103	₹92
₹104	₹94

At ₹101 the stop has not moved, because the price has not yet gained a full ₹2 step. That is deliberate, and it is how a bracket order’s trailing stop works.

The trailing step needs a stop-loss with it. On its own, a trailing value cannot say how far behind the price your stop should sit, so an order with a trailing step and no stop-loss is refused before it is placed. Send both together.

Four things to know before you use it

These are stated in the one-time agreement you accept before your first AutoTrader bracket order, and they are worth reading here too.

1. A stop-loss decides when we try to exit. It does not decide the price you get. This is the most important one, and it is true of every stop-loss, ours and your broker’s alike. If the price jumps straight past your level — on a sudden move, on news, or at the open — the exit is placed at the price available at that moment, which can be far worse than your level. Your actual loss can be much bigger than the stop-loss you set, and there is no limit on how much bigger. In the same way, a fast move can touch your target and come straight back before the exit reaches the exchange. And if a circuit limit or a trading halt applies, or there is simply no buyer or seller, the exit cannot happen at all and your position stays open. A trailing stop-loss does not change any of this: it moves the level we act on, it does not lock in profit. Please size your positions on what you can afford to lose, not on your stop-loss.

2. It does not give you extra margin. Some brokers give higher intraday margin on their own bracket orders. Ours cannot, because your entry is a normal intraday order. What you get is a target, a stop-loss and a trailing stop that work everywhere — not extra leverage.

3. It is intraday, and it closes itself. An AutoTrader bracket or cover order is squared off automatically a short while before the market closes for that segment. If you wanted to hold overnight, this is the wrong order type. The exact square-off time is shown on the order window before you place it, and on the open position afterwards. That square-off is an ordinary exit order, so it can fail for the same reasons as any other.

4. Your target is always watched by AutoTrader Web. Your stop-loss can be watched by us, or kept at your broker — you choose. Your target is never left waiting at the exchange. We watch the price and send the closing order when it is reached. For the stop-loss you get a choice each time you place an order, explained in the next section. Whichever you pick, we only ever send one closing order, so you are never left holding an unwanted position in the opposite direction.

Where your stop-loss waits

When you place an AutoTrader bracket or cover order, you choose one of two ways for your stop-loss to work. This is set per order, so you can use one for a large position and the other for a small one.

Watched by AutoTrader Web

This is the default, and how it has always worked.

1. Your entry order is filled.
2. We start watching the live price.
3. When the price reaches your stop-loss, we send the closing order.

Nothing is waiting at your broker. That is what lets the same order work on every broker, and what lets you change your levels whenever you like. The trade-off: your stop-loss only works while our service is running and receiving prices. If we cannot watch the price, we tell you — we never close your position because of a problem at our end.

Held at your broker

1. Your entry order is filled completely.
2. We immediately place a real stop-loss order at your broker.
3. It waits there. If the price reaches it, your broker acts on it — our service does not need to be running.

This is the safer choice if you are worried about losing your internet connection, or about our service being interrupted. Two things to know:

• It is available only when you are not using a trailing stop-loss. A trailing stop moves as the price moves, and each move would mean changing the order at your broker again and again. Brokers limit how often you can do that, and a refused change would mean a stop that quietly stops trailing.
• A stop-loss order can be triggered and still not fill. Your stop-loss goes to the broker as a stop-loss limit order, so if the price runs straight past your limit it may fill only in part, or not at all. We keep watching in the background and close the rest for you if that happens.

Your target is watched by us in both cases. We never leave a target order waiting at your broker, for two reasons: one fast move could fill both a waiting target and a waiting stop-loss and leave you with a position you never asked for, and a waiting target order can use up the margin your stop-loss needs — so the stop-loss gets refused and you are left with no protection at all.

	Watched by AutoTrader Web	Held at your broker
Works if our service is interrupted	No	Yes
Works with a trailing stop-loss	Yes	No
Anything waiting at your broker	Nothing	Your stop-loss
Change levels any time	Yes	Yes
Available on	Every broker	Every broker

Placing one

From the order window

1. Open Trading → Portfolio, then the Trade tab.
2. In Variety, pick AT_BO or AT_CO from the AutoTrader row. The row underneath tells you which engine runs the order you have selected.
3. The first time, you are asked to agree to a short set of terms. You get an email with a link; open it, agree once, and you never see it again.
4. Fill in Target, Stop-loss and, if you want it, Trailing stoploss. Each box says it takes rupees away from your entry price, and shows you the price each one works out to.
5. Place the order as usual.

The product is set to intraday and the validity to day, because that is what this order type is.

From your code

The one-time agreement applies here too. If you have not agreed to the terms yet, the call is refused and tells you so. You agree once from the order window, as described above.

There are two new functions, one for each type. They sit next to the existing bracket and cover functions and do not change them.

# AutoTrader bracket order: target 5, stop-loss 2.5, trailing step 1
response = autotrader.place_autotrader_bracket_order( \
	'ACC_NICK_NAME', '<exchange>', 'SBIN', 'BUY', 'LIMIT', \
	10, 180.5, 0.0, 5, 2.5, 1)

# AutoTrader cover order: stop-loss 2.5, no target
response = autotrader.place_autotrader_cover_order( \
	'ACC_NICK_NAME', '<exchange>', 'SBIN', 'BUY', 'LIMIT', \
	10, 180.5, 2.5, 0)

Full reference: Place AutoTrader Bracket Order and Place AutoTrader Cover Order.

From a chart alert

Do the one-time agreement first. Alerts cannot show you the terms, so this step has to be done once on the website before your first alert of this type. Open Trading → Portfolio, go to the Trade tab, pick AT_BO in Variety, and click Email me the terms. Open the link in the email and agree. Until you do, every alert with variety=AT_BO or AT_CO is refused, and the reason on the alert tells you this.

Then add variety=AT_BO (or AT_CO) to a TradingView alert, and write the levels with pt:

account=MY_ACCOUNT
variety=AT_BO
exchange=<exchange>
symbol=SBIN
tradetype=BUY
producttype=INTRADAY
quantity=10
target=10pt
stoploss=10pt
trailsl=2pt

An alert like this places the order and attaches the levels in one go. If anything is missing — no target on an AT_BO, a level written as a percentage, or a delivery product — the alert is refused with the reason, before any order reaches your broker.

Seeing and changing one that is already running

Your target and stop-loss are not separate orders in your order book, so there is nothing to look for there. Everything lives on one control on the Positions tab.

Where to look

A position that came from an AutoTrader bracket carries a small AT_BO or AT_CO pill next to its symbol, with a little arrow (▾) on it.

• A solid pill means your entry has filled and your levels are being watched. A faded pill means the entry has not filled yet, so nothing is protected yet.
• When it is solid, your live stop-loss is printed next to the pill — the one number that decides how much the position can lose is readable without clicking.
• A Closed pill means the bracket finished today, with the outcome next to it (Target hit — exited at 1,227.70, or Squared off at 3:00 PM).

Click the pill and the row opens to show the status, quantity, entry price, target, stop-loss, trailing step, the time the position squares off, and where your stop-loss is being kept — resting at your broker as a real order, on its way there, watched by us because that is what you chose, or watched by us because something went wrong with the order at your broker. That last one is highlighted and says what happened, because it means nothing is waiting at your broker any more.

Before your entry fills there are no prices yet, so the target and stop-loss are shown as the distances you asked for instead.

The same pill appears on the Orders tab against the order that started the bracket, but there it is for looking only. The three buttons below are on Positions.

The three things you can do

• Modify — change your target, stop-loss or trailing step. Here you type the price you want, not a distance, and the box shows you how far that is from your entry. Any box you leave empty is left alone — a modify never removes a level. Moving the stop-loss to your entry price, so the trade can no longer lose, is allowed. If your stop-loss is held at your broker, the trailing step box is switched off and says why.
• Remove protection — stop watching one or more of your levels. Your position stays open; nothing is closed, and the confirmation says exactly what you will be left holding. You choose one of: target only (your stop-loss keeps working, and an AT_BO behaves like an AT_CO from then on), stop-loss only, stop trailing (the stop stays where it has trailed to and stops moving), or everything (the position is left unmanaged). You only see the choices that apply to your order.
• Exit now — close the position at market straight away. If your entry has not filled yet there is nothing to close, so the waiting entry order is cancelled instead and the bracket ends. The button tells you which of the two it is going to do before you confirm.

A closed bracket has no buttons — there is nothing left to act on.

A trailing stop is never loosened. If you try to move it further away than where it has already trailed to, we keep the tighter one and tell you.

If your stop-loss is held at your broker, changing the level changes that order at the broker too. If the broker refuses the change, your old stop-loss stays exactly where it was and we tell you the change did not go through — you are never left with no stop-loss because a change failed.

Step-by-step, with every screen: how to see, change, exit or stop watching an AT_BO or AT_CO.

What happens if…

One rule covers almost all of this: anything you do by hand wins. We never undo your action or fight it. But we always tell you what changed and what is now yours to handle.

…I cancel the stop-loss order at my broker myself

Your protection continues. We notice the order is gone, switch that bracket to watched by AutoTrader Web at the same level, and email you to say so. We do not place it again — you cancelled it on purpose, and putting it straight back would be arguing with you.

If you actually want no stop-loss at all, use Remove protection on the Positions tab. That is the clear way to say it, and the confirmation tells you exactly what you will be left holding.

…I cancel the closing order that AutoTrader Web placed

This one is different, and it ends the bracket.

Once your target or stop-loss is reached, we send a closing order. If you cancel that order, we take it as “not this, not now” and stop. We do not send another one. Your position stays open with no target and no stop-loss, and it is yours to manage from that point. We email you to make sure you know.

The reason is that the level has already been reached. Waiting for it again makes no sense, and sending the closing order a second time would simply undo what you just did.

…I change the stop-loss order at my broker myself

We use your new level. When your stop-loss is held at your broker, that order is your stop-loss — so if you move it, that is your stop-loss now. We update what we show you to match, and tell you. There is never a second, hidden level.

…I close part of the position by hand

We only close what is actually left. If your bracket covers 100 and you close 40 yourself, we close 60 when your level is reached — never the original 100, which would leave you holding a fresh position in the opposite direction. If your stop-loss is held at your broker, we resize that order to match.

…I add to the position by hand

The bracket ignores it. An AutoTrader bracket belongs to the order that created it, not to everything you hold in that symbol. Your levels and quantity stay as they were, and the quantity you added is not covered. If you want it covered, close the position and place a fresh bracket for the full size.

…I close the whole position by hand

The bracket ends by itself. If a stop-loss was waiting at your broker, we cancel it — otherwise it could trigger later and open a new position you never asked for.

…the stop-loss order is rejected by my broker

Your protection continues. We switch that bracket to watched by AutoTrader Web and email you, so you know your stop-loss is being watched by us rather than waiting at your broker. You are never left with nothing.

…your service goes down while I have a position open

If your stop-loss is held at your broker, it keeps working — that is exactly what the option is for.

If it is watched by us, we cannot act while we are not receiving prices. We tell you as soon as we can, and we never close your position because of a problem at our end.

…I use copy trading

Everything above applies to your master account. Your child accounts follow the orders placed on the master, the same as they always do.

Two things worth checking in your copy settings:

• If copy cancel is switched off, cancelling an order on the master does not cancel it on your child accounts.
• If copy modify is switched off, changing a level on the master does not change it on your child accounts — they keep the level they were given.

A copied order also reaches a child account a short time after the master, so in a fast market a child account’s closing order can fill for less quantity, or not at all.

Limits worth knowing

• One at a time per symbol. You can have one AutoTrader bracket running per account and symbol. A second one on the same symbol is refused, and the message names the one already running — two sets of levels fighting over the same position would help nobody.
• It cannot be split. If the quantity you want is above the exchange’s maximum for a single order, the order window normally splits it into several. An AutoTrader bracket cannot be split, because it belongs to one order — so the split control is switched off while AT_BO or AT_CO is selected. Place them as separate orders instead.
• Intraday products only, for the reason in point 2 above.
• Your broker’s own BO and CO are untouched. They are still there in the Variety list, still run by your broker, and still available only where your broker supports them. Nothing you already use changes.

Which one should I use?

	Your broker’s BO / CO	AutoTrader AT_BO / AT_CO
Works on	Only brokers that offer it	Every broker we support
Extra intraday margin	Sometimes	No
Target and stop-loss	Yes	Yes
Trailing stop-loss	Where the broker supports it	Yes, everywhere
Change levels after placing	Where the broker supports it	Yes, from the Positions tab
Where your levels wait	Both at the exchange	Target with us; stop-loss with us or at your broker, your choice

If your broker’s bracket order works well for you and the extra margin matters, keep using it. Use ours when your broker does not offer one, when its version is unreliable, or when you want the same behaviour across every account you trade.