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Where to Put Your Stop (and Why ‘Mental Stops’ Fail)

beginner·6 min read·Tier 3

How to place a stop at a level the market has to actually break — and why keeping it only in your head rarely survives a losing trade.

A stop-loss is the price where you admit the trade is wrong and get out. It is the single most important number in any trade, because it defines your risk before you ever think about reward. Get the stop right and everything downstream — position size, reward-to-risk, how the trade feels — falls into place. Get it wrong, or skip it, and one bad trade can undo weeks of good ones.

Place the stop where your idea is wrong

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