Writing stop rules that survive historical marking
Stops that move after you see the next candle teach nothing. Practical language for invalidation when you backtest chart setups.
During backtesting, the quiet temptation is mercy: the stop was “basically hit,” so you give the trade another bar. That habit invents a track record no live account will honour.
Anchor to structure you can point at
Prefer “close beyond the swing low that defined the setup” over “when it feels wrong.” Feelings do not appear on a printed chart from 2019.
Decide on wick versus close
State whether a wick through the level ends the trade or whether only a close counts. Mixed standards between instances make win-rate columns meaningless.
Time stops belong on the sheet
If the idea must work within three sessions, write that before you mark. Many “almost” winners in a notebook are simply trades that were given unlimited patience.
In the intensive, session two is devoted almost entirely to freezing invalidation language before students touch a large sample.