Chasing the candle
Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2026 9:00 pm
A big green bar prints, price is already 6 pips off the low, and a buy order goes in anyway. The entry fills near the top, price pulls back, and the stop hits. It feels like bad luck, but it is a reaction bias, not randomness.
The pull to chase comes from fear of missing out, strengthened by how vivid a running move looks. The brain treats the visible momentum as a promise.
The fix is not willpower in the moment but rules written beforehand. A maximum distance from the signal, for example, so that an entry is skipped when price has already moved more than a set amount. Another is requiring a pullback before any entry after a large bar.
Also useful is tallying missed trades. Most traders find the missed moves are fewer than imagined, and many would have stopped out anyway.
A skipped trade costs nothing. A chased trade costs the spread, the slippage, and the stop.
What rule keeps entries from happening after the move is already done?
The pull to chase comes from fear of missing out, strengthened by how vivid a running move looks. The brain treats the visible momentum as a promise.
The fix is not willpower in the moment but rules written beforehand. A maximum distance from the signal, for example, so that an entry is skipped when price has already moved more than a set amount. Another is requiring a pullback before any entry after a large bar.
Also useful is tallying missed trades. Most traders find the missed moves are fewer than imagined, and many would have stopped out anyway.
A skipped trade costs nothing. A chased trade costs the spread, the slippage, and the stop.
What rule keeps entries from happening after the move is already done?