"Well then, how should we have decided?"

After reading this far,

probably many people think this way:

"So in the end,

where should I have cut my losses?"

This question itself is

very natural,

and rather healthy.

But,

at this point, many people

go one step further and make a mistake again.

That is,

they start looking for the “correct position.”

・How many pips down?

・Just outside the recent low?

・How many times the ATR?

They go to look for a textbook again.

But,

what really should have been decided

was not the position, but the criteria.

If you decide the place to place the stop based on a “shape,”

the moment the market changes,

everything shifts.

The size of the waves,

the participants,

the liquidity, they’re all different,

so there is no single “correct”.

Then what should you use as a standard?

That is,

the condition under which you decide you were wrong.

More precisely,

“If this premise collapses,

this trade no longer holds.”

And you can determine the point at which that happens.

That varies from person to person,

and also depends on the method.

So originally,

stops were

not things to be taught,

they were something to be defined by oneself.

But reality is the opposite.

Many people can explain their entry reasons, but

they cannot explain

“why they cut here.”

So at the moment of being stopped out,

they think things like,

“That was a bit early,”

“If only it went a bit lower,”

“Next time I’ll take more room.”

At this point,

they haven’t made a decision.

And on the next trade,

the stop becomes

not a decision, but

an escape hatch for emotions.

Here is one important turning point.

・A person who was stopped by their own decided criteria

・A person who was stopped simply because of where they placed it

Even with the same loss,

these two are standing in completely different places.

The former ends with “the assumption was wrong.”

The latter ends with

“I’m wrong.”

This difference,

when compounded, becomes fatal.

So,

how should you have decided?

There is only one answer.

Decide how the trade ends before emotions enter the picture.

In the next part,

why that is

not as easy as saying it aloud.

And,

many people

interpret it as “the reason I couldn’t do it myself.”

From here on,

it becomes the heart of the matter.