Why Is The Price Reversing After Hitting Stop Loss?

Hello, my fellow Forex traders!

Today we will discuss one, one might say, rhetorical question that often arises among beginners and quite experienced traders. This question is as follows: "Why, as soon as my stop is hit, the price reverses?"

Why does it happen? Does the market see where you put your orders and why does it kick them out to spite you, immediately reversing in the original direction? Let's try to figure out what is the prerequisite for this situation, where most market participants put their stop losses, what to do about it and how to deal with it.

The basic idea
Let's assume you have detected the " Engulfing" pattern on the chart and concluded that the price will go up in the future. It does not matter whether the signal was shown by the indicator or the trading system. The question is, where would you place a stop loss here? Most likely, either under the candlestick or near the last local low.
Everything seems to be fine, but then the price knocks out your stop loss and goes, as expected, up. I think you can give many such examples from your own practice or from observations of other traders.

Why does this happen?
The fact is that in addition to other traders like you and me, there are big players in the market: hedge funds, banks, various institutional investors. They open rather large positions, i.e. positions of very large volume, for opening which they need a sufficient level of liquidity.
If one tries to open such a position in the middle of a trend, high volume can move the price in the direction of the position, but after that the price is likely to roll back leaving the trader at a disadvantage.

Imagine this if you, for example, come to the market to buy potatoes, but not 1 kilogram, but a whole truck. It would seem that you should get a more favorable price as a wholesale buyer, but in fact the more favorable price will be received by the one, who came to buy 1 kg.

So, the big players have to cheat and look for places with a lot of liquidity to sell in order to buy profitably and vice versa. Actually, your stop-loss for a buy position is nothing but a sell order. Accordingly, it is profitable for a large player to take exactly this liquidity in the form of stop-loss and pending sell stop orders, and thus gain his own position without moving the market price much.

You're probably wondering how such a big player could be interested in such small positions. But the fact is that approximately 95% of traders place orders in approximately the same places. Accordingly, since people think alike, the big players don't need to see all the insider information about exactly where your stop loss is, it's obvious enough. After the liquidity has been absorbed, the market goes in its own direction, but without you.

Most market participants place their stop losses at one of these locations:
Local lows/highs;
Support/resistance levels;
Round levels;
Borders of channels, rectangles and other consolidation patterns.


Where do I place a stop loss?
1) The first thing that comes to mind is not to put a stop in principle, no stop - no problem. However, this practice will not suit everyone. If you are new to the market, it is dangerous to work without a stop-loss, that is, to keep it in mind, or to use a virtual one without placing it directly in the market, and such practice often leads to large losses or loss of the entire deposit.

2) Some use various technical tricks, applying the so-called virtual stop-loss. That is, the order will be closed, but it will be closed by an Expert Advisor, not by an automatic market order. But, in fact, it does not matter whether the stop is in the market or not the behavior of the big players will not change from this.

3) The next logical solution is to put a stop loss with a larger margin (at a farther distance). This solution is not the worst and has the right to live. The reserve, however, should not be too large, otherwise you just increase the risk for nothing. This option will not help in all cases, but in general it is not a bad compromise.

4) The opposite solution a very short stop. If it is hit, you can not worry too much and then re-enter the market. This solution also has the right to life, but most often it implies a re-entry. At the same time, if the stop was hit, you need to understand why it happened, and only after analyzing the situation, enter for the second time.

5) You can enter in the same way after a false-break. If you have received confirmation of a false-break, it is possible to use this situation to your own advantage. That is, to enter the market, when the stops of other participants have been knocked out.

6) To calculate the size of a stop loss, you can use not only the chart itself, but also other tools such as the ATR indicator. The ATR readings are usually multiplied by a multiplier, such as 2 or 3. In this case, we have a daily chart and the ATR values are large enough, so a multiplier of 2 will be sufficient. The indicator shows 112 points, so we set a stop loss at a distance of 224 points (112 * 2) from the entry point. In general, as the tests show, this is probably one of the most correct ways to set a stop loss.

Conclusion
You are free to apply any of the listed solutions. Perhaps you will find your own solution to the problem some use fibo, some use ATR. The best solution is the Average True Range indicator. This is a sure way to avoid frequent stop triggering situations with a subsequent price reversal. The main thing is try to think differently than everyone else, keep in mind the big players and their methods of position taking and you will be fine!
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