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Stophunts

Splitting Thoughts: Anatomy of a Stop Hunt in Accumulation PhaseCall me a conspiracy theorist all you want but the fact is price look for liquidity. Liquidity exists in price zones that have a lot of participation. Obvious levels and obvious patterns are liquidity pool haven. No, I do not have a "solution" or steps to avoid this phenomenon. I have my own personal ways to navigate it. Is it the best? It is the best for me personally for sure, it could be the worse for you. Refer to the links below how I navigate the market in a very simplified way
Education
by sufiansaid
Trapping Breakout and Retracement TradersThis is by no means to be anti-breakout/anti-retracement. I find these entry methods as a valid entry method. As valid as it is, the triggers for such entry method are mostly obvious hence easily to be taken advantage of by the institutional traders. For breakout traders, how these banks would trap is the normal fake breakouts. We all know this as it is a guarantee that it is part of a retail trader, to be the receiving end of this stop hunt. Even if the breakout turns out to be the start of a trend, the institution would tap into the breakout traders stop-loss first (if there is not enough liquidity) before the move continues away from the breakout level. For retracement traders (who prefers the price to retrace first upon the breakout before entry) are not safe with this stop hunt as well. Whatever triggers it was, the stop loss for this traders tends to reside the recent highs or lows of the underlying move. In this example, let's assume the trigger was a bearish engulfing candle. The stop loss would normally be a few pips above the high of the candle. This is just my personal preference with all due respect for those who trades breakouts and retracements (and I am sure some of you made tons of profits trading this way, I just can't make it work and I never able to be comfortable with it, for these reasons I tend to fade breakouts and avoid "retracement" and "continuation" trade triggers respectively. Read my other posts on that has titles like "Navigating the Market" and other educational posts which I share how I navigate the market to eliminate the noise and finding the optimal time to trade.
OANDA:XAUUSDEducation
by sufiansaid
Stop Hunts = Necessary Evil Every stops being taken out is to service one of the purpose = A) to push the price further in the institution trader's intention of price manipulation towards their ultimate intention i.e their ultimate intention is to buy at a low price say 1.0000, so they take out some stops at 1.0500 to provide liquidity for the short term move towards the cheaper price at 1.000. In this case, a sell stop at 1.0500 would have been consumed so the price could go further down. B) to get enough orders for them to consume so they will avoid or limit slippage when they execute their market order and/or their buy/sell stops gets filled. i.e They manipulate the price towards 1.000 and take out all the sell stops so they can buy it (sometimes the buy stops AND its stop losses. A stoploss for a buy stop is a sell stop and vice versa) For SGDJPY, if an institutional trader in Singapore or Japan wants to Short SGDJPY with a huge order, they need to manipulate the price to get more liquidity. If i was a reversal support/resistance trader and I already shorted this pair, I would definitely put my stoploss at the area I illustrated in the skyblue line at 77.35 to 77.50. My stoploss is FOOD for the bank traders. The rule of thumb is simple : The more obvious the S/R line is, the more likely it is becoming a manipulation zone/stophunt zone. So, if price breaks above Friday High and close above it, I would be looking a bearish signal. The higher it goes, the better . If the bank trader wants to go Long and there is not enough liquidity (it's a Monday, of course, it is more likely not enough liquidity), a stop hunt is basic modus operandi to make sure your Long order would get spilled without slippage/limited slippage (also they could split their order which on the chart would cause a lot "re-tests of support" and ugly whipsaws (accumulation). If the price breaks and close below Friday low (preferably going at 76.80-76.60 (the lower the better), then I will be looking for a bullish signal there Please read related post below.
Education
by sufiansaid
Navigating The Market : Monday with Tue/Wed RelationshipThis write up is an extension to this post : The concept is when the price on Tuesday or Wednesday broken and close above the Monday high, generally that potentially could be the "anchor" /high of the week hence the intraday trend of that week will rooted from this. Vice versa. Of course, this doesn't happen 100% of the time but it happens repetitively. Usually, this block (Tuesday-Wednesday) is, very often, the "final stage"/"final push" from the institutions with their price-fixing/stop hunts/liquidity hunt. It tends to extend until Thursday or Friday but generally, those block (Thursday-Friday) tend to be a profit-taking day for the banks
OANDA:XAUUSDEducation
by sufiansaid
1
Navigating The Market : Simplifed = Friday/Monday relationshipThis is not a trading strategy nor claiming this concept happens 100% of the time, but this is a repetitive pattern and I personally believe it could help you to navigate the market (particularly if you are an intraday trader) more efficiently. I generally would see this in 1-Hour timeframe but for the sake of being able to show you with more examples in one post, I choose D1 timeframe for this post. When price breaks and close above Friday high on a Monday, more often than not, the price would eventually reverse downwards within 18-24 hours. Vice versa for a close below Friday low (on a Monday) Why I believe this phenomenon is real and tangible is because Friday or Monday normally a day where the Banks (NY session) attempt to clear their books. In order to do this, sometimes they need liquidity to offload their position, they would do stop hunts if there is a need to do so. Hence I've conceptualised this Friday/Monday relationship into my way of analyzing the intraday moves especially on a Mondays. By default, any breakout from the Friday high or low, I would consider it as a stop hunt/fake breakout. Of course, there be a week where a breakout from the Friday started a huge trend that lasts weeks, but that is an outlier. I do not care about outliers, as a trader I will try to profit from what is repetitive, and this concept is very repetitive. This is just one of three "day-to-day relationships" that I have conceptualised to make me reading the market a lot easier. The other two are Mon - Tue/Wed relationship,andTue/Wed to Thu/Fri relationships that I have conceptualised. Tell me what you all think,
Education
by sufiansaid