# Counter Trade

> Sumo's flagship strategy that counters external trades to maintain price stability.

- URL: https://docs.sumo.trade/strategies/counter-trade
- Markdown: https://docs.sumo.trade/strategies/counter-trade.md
- Docs index: https://docs.sumo.trade/llms.txt

Counter Trade is Sumo's flagship strategy. It monitors your token's pool for external trades and automatically executes a counter-trade to offset the price impact — buying when others sell, and selling when others buy.

> **Video: Counter Trade Deep Dive**
>
> A focused walkthrough of trigger thresholds, capture percentages, delay settings, and price-stability workflows.
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spY_kz9aMFk

![Create Counter Trade strategy](/images/strategy-counter-trade.png)

## How It Works

1. Sumo watches your token's pool for external trades in real time
2. When a trade exceeds your trigger threshold, Sumo calculates a counter-trade
3. The counter-trade executes from your wallets, offsetting the price movement
4. MEV bots are automatically excluded (when enabled) to avoid counter-trading against bots

## Strategy Types

Counter Trade has two directions:

* **Auto Buy Into Sells** — When someone sells your token, Sumo automatically buys to support the price
* **Auto Sell Into Buys** — When someone buys your token, Sumo automatically sells to take profit or manage supply

You can run both simultaneously to maintain a tight price range.

## Configuration

### Trigger Size

The minimum (and optional maximum) external trade size that triggers a counter-trade. You can set this in:

* **USD** — Dollar value of the trade
* **Quote** (e.g. SOL, WETH, WBNB) — Quote asset amount
* **Token** — Number of tokens traded

| Field   | Description                                                       |
| ------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Min** | Minimum trade size to trigger a counter (required)                |
| **Max** | Maximum trade size to counter (optional — leave empty for no cap) |

> **Filter Out Noise**
>
> Set the minimum trigger high enough to ignore small trades that don't meaningfully impact price. This keeps your wallets from being drained by dust trades.

### Capture Percentage

How much of the detected trade to counter:

| Field               | Description                                                   |
| ------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Capture Min (%)** | Minimum percentage of the trade to counter (required, 1–100%) |
| **Capture Max (%)** | Maximum percentage (optional — for a randomized range)        |

For example, if someone sells $1,000 of your token and capture is set to 40%, Sumo buys back $400 worth.

Setting a capture range (e.g. 30–50%) randomizes the counter amount, making your trading pattern less predictable on-chain.

### Delay

How long to wait after detecting a trade before executing the counter:

* **None** — Execute immediately
* **10s / 15s / 20s** — Preset delays
* **Custom** — Enter any delay in seconds

A short delay can help avoid appearing as an obvious counter-trade on-chain.

### Exclude MEV

When enabled, Sumo automatically identifies and ignores trades from known MEV bots. This prevents your strategy from counter-trading against sandwich attacks and other MEV activity.

MEV wallets are managed in [Profile Settings](/getting-started/profile-settings) — both manually added and auto-detected wallets.

### Wallet

Choose which wallets execute the counter-trades:

* **All wallets** — Rotate across all active wallets
* **Wallet group** — Use wallets from a specific group
* **Individual wallet** — Use a single wallet

### Slippage

Set the maximum price movement Sumo should allow for each counter-trade. Use a tighter value when you want stricter execution, and a wider value when fast execution matters more than exact output.

### Private Relay

On supported EVM profiles, you can enable **MEV protection using Private Relays**. This routes eligible counter-trades through private relays to reduce public mempool exposure.

## Strategy List View

Active counter trade strategies display:

| Column         | Description                                                  |
| -------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Trigger**    | The trigger range (e.g. "$500–$10,000")                      |
| **Capture**    | Capture percentage or range (e.g. "40%" or "30–50%")         |
| **Delay**      | Execution delay (e.g. "15s" or "None")                       |
| **Net Change** | Cumulative base and quote asset changes from executed trades |
| **Status**     | Whether the strategy is active, paused, completed, or failed |

## Tips

* Start with **Auto Buy Into Sells** to support your token's price, then add **Auto Sell Into Buys** once you're comfortable
* Use a capture range (e.g. 30–50%) instead of a fixed percentage to make trades less predictable
* Enable **Exclude MEV** to avoid wasting funds counter-trading bots
* Set a reasonable trigger minimum to filter out small trades
* Pause the strategy before changing its settings

- [DCA](/strategies/dca): Schedule regular buys or sells at fixed intervals.

- [Impact Calculator](/strategies/impact-calculator): Estimate the price impact of a trade before executing.

## Further Reading

* [Counter Trading: Sell Tokens Without Hurting the Chart](https://blog.sumo.trade/counter-trade-strategy/) — how counter trading lets founders take profit without printing red candles
* [What Is MEV and Why Do Token Teams Care?](https://blog.sumo.trade/mev-protection-for-traders/) — what sandwich bots take from your trades and why Exclude MEV matters