Stop Hunt

Stop hunt is the accusatory name for a sweep. The claim is that someone, a market maker, a large trader, "they," pushed price through a stop cluster in order to fill the other side and then reversed it. Sometimes large participants do trade into obvious stops, because that is where size can be filled. Sometimes a stop cluster simply becomes the cascade that starts a real move. The chart does not stamp the intent. What you can trade is the outcome. If price takes the stops and comes back, you have a failed break. If price takes the stops and goes, you have a breakout. Building a method on the motive will make you fight every breakout as a hunt and hold every failed fade as a conspiracy.

Replace the question "are they hunting stops?" with "did the break fail?" Mark the obvious stop price. If the bar closes back inside and the next push cannot extend the extreme, the failed-break trade is available, with the stop beyond the extreme. If the bar closes outside, there is no hunt to fade. There is a break to respect. This substitution removes the mind-reading and leaves the pattern, which is the false breakout. Use the stop-hunt page as a warning about language, and use the false-breakout and liquidity-sweep pages as the actual mechanics.

The useful remnant of the idea is location. Place your own stops where the cluster is not, or accept that a stop beyond a plain swing will be reached often and size for that. Do not place a stop one tick under an equal low and act surprised. And do not assume that after a hunt the market owes you a reversal of a particular size. Take the failed-break setup only when the target on the other side pays for the wick you are risking.

Explaining every loss as a stop hunt. Some losses are a wrong bias. Also fading a close beyond the level because you have decided in advance that the push is a hunt. That decision is what trend days punish. And moving your stop to a "safer" obvious level that is actually the next cluster.

Intent is not data. Even a genuine attempt to run stops can fail to reverse if a larger seller or buyer is behind it. The concept adds a villain and no new price rule beyond the false breakout. If the false-breakout rule is not good enough without the villain, the hunt story will not save it. Keep your journal in terms of sweeps, closes, and levels.