Invalidation

Invalidation is not the same as a pullback, discomfort, or a red P&L. It occurs when the market reaches the mechanical wrong point or otherwise produces the structural behavior you defined in advance as incompatible with the thesis.

For a breakout trade, a normal revisit of the old boundary may leave the thesis intact while a deep return into the middle of the old range destroys the acceptance case. For another structure, crossing a specific swing may be the decisive event. The exact invalidation depends on what the trade was built on.

The important part is that invalidation is defined before entry. Once it happens, changing the story to keep the trade alive removes falsifiability. Price may later reverse and travel in the original direction, but that does not restore the old thesis retroactively. The trade you entered was invalidated; any new trade requires a new case.