Stop Placement

A stop should be tied to the structure that justified the trade. First identify the mechanical wrong point — the price or event that would make the thesis false. Then place the stop far enough beyond that point to allow for ordinary execution and market noise without moving it so far that the invalidated thesis remains open.

This reverses a common process. Instead of choosing a fixed pip stop and trying to make the chart fit it, the structure defines the distance and position size is adjusted to keep account risk within the plan.

Obvious stop locations also tend to attract clusters of other stops, which can release aggression when triggered. That does not mean avoiding logical structure. It means recognizing that a stop is a conditional market order and that the fill can differ from the trigger price. The stop's job is to enforce invalidation, not to predict the cleanest possible exit.