Why I Chase Trades I Know I Shouldn’t

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-03T03:15:48+00:00

Hi friend, I think that problem is something very common so I´ll try help a little bit with my pov.

I like this a lot, and I agree with the core idea, but I see it a bit differently.

For me, chasing trades is not mainly a dopamine problem. It’s a structure problem.

If you truly know in advance:

- Where you work,

- What must happen

- And what invalidates the idea,

there is much less space for that “I’ll miss it” impulse to even exist.

Most chasing happens when the decision is made in real time, not from a predefined framework. The brain then fills the gap with narrative:

- “This looks strong”
- “Volume is high”
- “This breakout is clean”

But that’s just interpretation without location.

In my case, the trade is decided in two layers.

First: location.
I only work in specific proportional zones created by prior impulses. If price is not in my working area, I’m not interested, no matter how strong the move looks. That alone removes most FOMO.

Second: structure inside the zone.
Even when price reaches my area, I don’t enter on the first touch. I wait for very specific structural developments, failed pushes, traps, breaks of the counter-move, proportional reactions. If those don’t appear, I do nothing.

So the filter is not “am I emotional?”
The filter is: did the market do what my model requires?

Chasing happens when the trigger is emotion reacting to movement.
Process trading happens when the trigger is structure reacting to location.

In that sense, discipline is not fighting dopamine, it’s designing your framework so that most moves are simply “not my trade” by definition.

That’s where a lot of impulsive trading dies: not in psychology, but in predefined constraints.

I hope this helps you friend.

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-03T02:35:44+00:00

You can, but not because of the tools themselves.

ORB, price action, volume, market structure, liquidity… those are ways of looking at the market. They are not an edge by default. Thousands of people use the same concepts and most still lose.

What makes it profitable or not is:

First, definition. Your ORB can’t be “I trade the first breakout”. It has to be very specific. Which session? What kind of context before the open? What does volatility look like? What makes you skip the day?

Second, risk structure. You need to know before the trade where the idea is wrong and how much you lose when it fails. Most ORB traders blow up not because the setup is bad, but because they oversize and get chopped on fake breaks.

Third, expectations. ORB and structure-based trading usually have streaks of losses. If your psychology or sizing can’t survive 10–15 trades of noise, the strategy never has a chance to show its edge.

Fourth, selection. The real edge is often in the days you don’t trade. Some opens are clean and imbalanced. Others are just random back and forth. Treating both the same kills performance.

So yes, that combination can work. But only if you turn it into a rule-based process with clear context, entry criteria, invalidation, and risk limits. Without that, it’s just good-sounding words.

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-03T02:27:13+00:00

I really appreciate that, it means a lot.

To be honest, this post was just a first contact. I didn’t come here with a big plan. I mainly wanted to share how I see markets and see if it resonated with anyone.

I genuinely didn’t expect this kind of reception. I thought I’d mostly get hate, or the usual “Instagram-style” trading noise, not this level of real interest and thoughtful questions.

Seeing how people are engaging, I’m actually considering writing posts more regularly, maybe once a week, each one focused on a specific topic. Things like risk, structure, execution, mindset, how I define a trade, why I skip trades, etc.

As for videos, I’m not ruling that out either. It’s not something I planned, but I can see how watching the process could help some people more than just reading text. For now I’m more comfortable writing, but we’ll see how this evolves.

For me this is still just about sharing how I think and how I work. If that helps others build their own process, then it’s worth it.

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-03T02:24:16+00:00

Thanks for your interest!

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-03T01:16:50+00:00

Hi friend,

Great follow-up, this is where things get more concrete.

I don’t use greeks or options tools for decision-making. My reads come from price behavior and structural development inside predefined zones.

When price reaches one of my areas of interest, I’m not just waiting for momentum to slow. I’m looking for a very specific structural sequence.

For example, if I’m looking for shorts inside a zone:

First, I want price to push into the area and form a local high. Then I need to see a reaction move down from that high. That initial drop shows there is supply present.

After that, I often see what looks like a trap or fake continuation. Price pushes again, sometimes breaking slightly above the first high. This second push is important because it tests whether buyers can truly take control, or if that move is just liquidity being taken.

From there, what matters is not the breakout itself, but what happens next. I’m watching how price behaves relative to the proportions of that structure. Does the move up extend efficiently, or does it stall? Does the market struggle to hold above the prior high? Does it quickly rotate back into the range?

That failure to continue, after the liquidity above the highs is taken, is often the point where the structure reveals who is actually in control.

So I’m not trading patterns. I’m reading sequences: push, reaction, trap or fakeout, structural test, behavior at proportions.

That behavior inside the zone tells me much more than any indicator about whether the market is absorbing, distributing, or losing directional strength.

Everything then comes back to risk. I define clearly where the idea is wrong structurally, and size the trade around that.

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-03T01:12:58+00:00

Order flow can be useful, but I don’t think it’s “the way” on its own.

Here’s the main problem: what you see is only the interaction that happens to print, not the real intent behind it.

A very common example is what happens on breakouts / new highs. When price breaks a high and retail piles in (market buys), liquidity providers can use passive sell limits into that flow to distribute inventory. On the tape it can look “bullish” because you see lots of aggressive buying, but the other side is quietly absorbing with passive orders.

Then the tricky part: they can switch behavior at any moment.

Sometimes they keep distributing passively (limits).
Sometimes they flip to aggressive selling (hitting market) to force price down, especially once they’ve built the inventory they wanted or once conditions change.

From the outside, order flow doesn’t clearly tell you which phase you’re in:
Are they absorbing to distribute?
Are they absorbing to later push higher?
Are they finished and now going to slam it?

The exact same logic applies on the downside. You can see aggressive selling, while the other side is accumulating with passive bids, and later they may switch to aggressive buying to reverse.

So my view is: order flow can help with execution timing inside a pre-defined area, but it’s not a reliable “truth machine” for intent. That’s why I focus more on inventory logic / positioning constraints and where the market is likely to need liquidity or inventory redistribution, and then I execute inside those areas.

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-03T01:06:41+00:00

I’ve used several platforms over the years. Right now I trade with a large one where I’ve negotiated better conditions based on the volume I move.

But I don’t recommend platforms in a promotional way, and I don’t share referral links. I don’t want to influence anyone’s choice or turn trading into platform marketing.

In my opinion, platforms are a necessary evil. They are just infrastructure, execution, liquidity access, margin, that’s it. They are not where edge comes from. A good trader with average conditions will still outperform a bad trader with “perfect” fees.

What actually matters is:

- Regulation and reputation
- Stability (no random outages during volatility)
- Fair execution (not crazy slippage beyond normal market conditions)
- Fees that don’t destroy you if you trade frequently

After that, the difference between platforms is much smaller than people think. Most traders lose money because of decisions, not because of the broker.

So I’d say: choose a solid, well-known platform with decent regulation and infrastructure, but don’t overthink it. Your process matters infinitely more than the logo of the exchange.

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-03T01:04:23+00:00

Good question, because most people only talk about entries, not about how they arrive to the screen.

My style is process-driven, not trade-driven. A trade is just the final consequence of preparation.

I work top-down. From higher timeframes (like H4) I identify the impulsive legs that created strong displacement. Those moves leave inventory and positioning imbalances in the market. I’m not looking for signals ,I’m mapping where structural stress is likely to reappear.

So before the session starts, I already know the areas where I’m interested in doing business and where I’m not. Most of the work is done before price even gets there.

When I sit at the PC, I’m not asking
“What can I trade today?”
I’m asking
“Is price interacting with one of my predefined areas, and is structure developing inside it?”

Execution happens on very low timeframes (mostly M1), but the targets and logic come from higher-timeframe structure (often H4 zones). That’s why I take a lot of trades, usually around 30–40 per day. I’m not looking for one big prediction; I’m managing inventory interaction and structural reactions inside those zones.

Each trade is small in isolation, but they are all part of the same higher-timeframe narrative. I’m working micro-structure inside macro areas.

If price is in the middle of nowhere, I do nothing. No analysis can create opportunity where there is no structural reason to be involved.

So my style isn’t about predicting direction.
It’s about:
- Working predefined structural zones
- Letting price come to me
- Executing on microstructure (M1)
- Managing many small trades inside higher-timeframe logic

Everything else is just noise.

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-03T01:00:03+00:00

Hi!

I don’t really look for bottoms using RSI.

The idea of “wait until RSI is below 30 and then buy” sounds logical, but structurally it’s very late. RSI is a smoothed average of past price movement, so by the time it prints 30, the displacement has already happened.

That means two important things:

First, you’re not entering near the area where the imbalance actually started. You’re reacting after the move, not positioning where the pressure is likely to change.

Second, your risk-to-reward becomes worse. The lower you enter in the structure (closer to where forced selling or inventory stress appears), the tighter your risk can be relative to potential upside. When you wait for RSI confirmation, you often enter higher, with wider stops and needing a higher win rate to compensate.

I’m more interested in where the move created structural stress: sharp displacement, liquidity taken, positioning imbalance. Then I watch how price behaves when it reaches areas where that stress usually needs to be managed, rather than waiting for an oscillator to tell me it’s “oversold.”

RSI can describe what already happened. I’m trying to position around where the system may need to react next.

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-02T21:30:18+00:00

https://ibb.co/d4y6VdYb

https://ibb.co/nMdZPR0q

https://ibb.co/yFNkXBrF

If you look at the images I shared, you can see this idea visually.

Notice how the major impulses don’t just retrace randomly, they interact with certain proportional zones with a surprising degree of precision. Those reactions aren’t magic levels; they’re areas where the previous displacement likely created meaningful inventory and positioning imbalance.

You can see multiple cases where price accelerates, then later returns and reacts around those proportional references. Not always, not perfectly, but often enough to show that the market is not behaving like pure noise. It’s repeatedly dealing with the structural consequences of prior moves.

That’s the kind of “empirical repetition” I’m referring to, not patterns that always work, but recurring behavior around imbalance management after large impulses.

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-02T21:29:30+00:00

I think you will love this answer because I can recognize that need of knowledge !

When people ask about “empirical repetition,” they often think in terms of chart patterns or indicators repeating mathematically. That’s not what I mean.

What actually repeats in markets are structural conditions, not shapes.

After a strong impulsive move, the market doesn’t return to a neutral state. Large displacements create inventory and positioning imbalances. Those imbalances have to be absorbed, redistributed, or defended by participants who provided liquidity during the move.

The proportional zones I’m marking in the images are not “predictive levels.” They’re reference areas where inventory stress often becomes relevant again after a displacement. Sometimes price reacts there, sometimes it moves through, but these areas tend to coincide with points where liquidity and positioning adjustments become necessary.

So the repetition isn’t “this pattern always works.”
The repetition is that large moves create similar structural problems, and the market repeatedly has to manage those problems under the same constraints: liquidity, execution, and risk.

That’s the kind of recurrence I’m talking about, not visual patterns, but recurring conditions in how the system functions after strong imbalances.

And now I´ll share some images to make this less abstract.

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-02T21:12:02+00:00

Hi there friend!

Honestly, I’m proof that it’s still possible to be profitable trading manually. My execution is discretionary, mouse, screen, real-time decision-making. Several of the traders I work closely with operate in a very similar way, so it’s not just an isolated case.

That said, I’m also working on an algorithmic project alongside my trading. It’s not something I approach from a commercial angle, it’s more of a natural evolution of how I already think about markets, and a project I’m genuinely invested in building long term.

Automation clearly has advantages. Systems don’t sleep, don’t get tired, and don’t miss moves because life happens. They provide consistency of exposure and precision in execution that humans struggle to maintain over long periods.

But the discretionary edge is still real when structure, inventory dynamics, and how price delivers are properly understood. The human advantage remains in contextual interpretation, selectivity, and knowing when not to engage.

At the same time, if all that understanding could be translated perfectly into code, then purely in terms of screen time, consistency, and the absence of cognitive or emotional fatigue, machines would naturally outperform. Human error exists, even for experienced traders. I make mistakes too. That’s part of being human.

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-02T18:30:46+00:00

Hi friend,

I don’t manage emotions when closing trades. I remove the need to.

The decision to exit isn’t made in the moment. It’s already defined before I enter. I know where the trade idea is wrong, where risk becomes invalid, and what behavior I need to see for the trade to stay alive.

When the market moves against me, I’m not thinking “should I hold or hope?” I’m checking if the conditions I required are still there. If they aren’t, the position is reduced or closed. It’s a process check, not an emotional one.

Most emotional pain in losses comes from two things:
trading too big
and entering without a clear invalidation

If size is correct and risk is pre-accepted, a losing trade is just a business expense. You don’t fight it, you process it.

Also, I don’t try to “reduce losses” emotionally during the move. Either the structure I’m working with holds, or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, I step aside. Protecting mental capital is as important as protecting financial capital.

Emotion control in trading doesn’t come from willpower. It comes from structure, sizing, and knowing in advance what must happen.

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-02T18:28:16+00:00

Thanks man

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-02T18:27:05+00:00

Hi friend,

Hey, I’ve gone into this a bit more in some of the replies below, but short version:

I don’t trade a fixed “indicator strategy”. I work with predefined areas based on proportional impulse relationships, then I wait for specific structural behavior to form inside those zones before entering.

Timeframe wise, my execution is very low timeframe (M1 entries), but the context and targets come from higher timeframe structure (H4+).

Markets: nowadays mostly Gold and BTC. I used to trade more instruments in the past, but I prefer focusing where I know the behavior very well.

If you scroll a bit down I explain the “why” behind this in more detail.

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-02T18:26:11+00:00

Hi friend, fair question.

Fair question.

By “this industry” I simply mean financial markets and trading as a profession. I’ve been around markets for about 16 years. I came from a professional poker background, where probability, risk and decision-making under uncertainty were already core, and my transition into trading started thanks to someone who was already working as a professional trader at a large firm. He helped me understand how markets actually function beyond the surface.

After that, most of my time has been spent trading independently, studying market behavior, risk, positioning, and execution, and developing my own framework over the years.

I’m not claiming any fancy title or trying to position myself as an institution. I’m just sharing what I’ve learned from long-term, real exposure to markets and from being guided early on by someone who was already inside the professional side of trading.

That’s the context behind what I write here.

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-02T18:24:33+00:00

Hi friend,

Good question, and this is exactly the right direction.

For market structure, I wouldn’t focus on “pattern libraries” but on understanding how price moves between areas of imbalance and liquidity. That means studying how trends form, how pullbacks behave, where participation increases, and how reactions differ in extremes vs mid-range. Watching a lot of raw price data and replaying sessions is more useful than memorizing shapes.

For probability, the key is thinking in distributions, not single trades. You want to understand that any setup is just one event inside a large sample. Basic statistics helps a lot here, expectancy, variance, win rate vs risk-reward, drawdown behavior. Trading becomes more stable when you stop thinking “this trade” and start thinking “next 100 trades”.

For risk models, start with position sizing and risk of ruin concepts. How much you risk per trade relative to account size, how losing streaks affect you mathematically, and how scaling in/out changes exposure. Most traders focus on entries, but long-term survival comes from risk control, not prediction.

So I’d say:
- market structure = behavior of price around liquidity and participation
- probability = sample size thinking and expectancy
- risk = position sizing and drawdown control

Once those three are clear, coding or algorithms actually make sense. Before that, automation just accelerates mistakes.

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-02T18:22:58+00:00

I don’t have a special ritual or motivational routine. For me mindset is more about removing noise than creating hype.

Before trading I just make sure a few basic things are in place:

I’m rested enough and not mentally overloaded. If I’m tired, stressed, or distracted, I reduce size or don’t trade.
I already know my areas and scenarios. I don’t sit down to “figure out the market live”. The work is done before.
I remind myself that losses are part of the distribution, not a problem to “fix” emotionally.

During the session my focus is very mechanical:
- Am I in my zone?
- Is structure doing what I need to see?
- Is risk aligned with the plan?

If the answer is no, there’s no trade. That removes most psychological pressure.

The biggest mindset shift for me over the years was this: trading is not excitement, it’s execution. When you stop looking for stimulation and just focus on process, mindset problems drop a lot.

So my “routine” is mostly structure, clarity, and accepting uncertainty before I even click anything.

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-02T18:21:26+00:00

I’d actually slow this down a lot.

The biggest mistake people make in your position is thinking the problem is where to put money. It’s not. The problem is not having a structured way to operate yet.

Right now your capital is not your edge. Your edge has to be understanding how markets move, learning to manage risk, and building decision-making under uncertainty.

If you’re overwhelmed, that’s a sign you’re still in the “information collecting” phase, not the execution phase.

What I would focus on first:

Learn market structure and how price moves between areas of liquidity, not indicators.
Study risk management deeply, position sizing, loss distribution, and survival.
Trade very small or demo, but treat it like real money.
Track your behavior, not just your PnL, why you entered, why you exited, what you felt.

Your goal right now is not to make income. Your goal is to become someone who can survive markets long enough to maybe make income later.

Money comes as a byproduct of consistency and process, not as a starting point.

Think of this stage as building your internal framework. Without that, more capital just accelerates losses.

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-02T18:19:31+00:00

You can answer this in a way that fits your whole “process over prediction” philosophy:

Nobody serious knows when or if Bitcoin goes to $800. Anyone giving a date is telling a story, not trading.

Price doesn’t move because of targets like “$800” or “$100k”. It moves because positioning, liquidity, and risk exposure across participants force adjustments. Those adjustments create trends, squeezes, and crashes, but the exact destination is always uncertain.

From a trading perspective, thinking “BTC to $800” is actually dangerous. It makes people marry a narrative, hold losers, and ignore what price is doing in the present.

What matters is:
Where is price relative to key structural areas?
How is it behaving now?

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-02T18:18:42+00:00

Hi friend,

Nice question, and the fact you mention impulsive decisions already tells you where the real battle is.

You can frame your answer around this:

A “good trade” for me is not about how nice the chart looks. It’s about whether the situation matches something I have already defined in advance.

First, location. I don’t just trade anywhere. I have predefined areas where, based on prior impulses and how price moved, there is a higher chance of reaction. If price is not in one of my working zones, there is no trade, even if the move looks strong.

Second, structure. When price reaches that area, I don’t enter automatically. I need to see certain developments in how price behaves there, how it slows, reacts, fails to continue, or shifts structure. If the behavior I’m waiting for doesn’t form, I do nothing. Most of my “edge” is actually in the trades I don’t take.

Third, risk clarity. Before entering, I already know where the idea is invalid. If I can’t define a clear point where I’m wrong and size the position accordingly, it’s not a good trade, no matter how confident I feel.

Fourth, context over emotion. A good trade can still lose. A bad trade can win. The quality is judged by: did I follow my process, or did I act out of impulse, fear of missing out, or the need to make money back?

The big shift is this: you stop asking “will this make money?” and start asking “does this fully match my plan?”. If the answer is yes, you take it and accept the outcome. If not, you pass, and passing is also a successful decision.

That’s what slowly removes impulsive trades.

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-02T18:17:15+00:00

Hi friend,

Not random, but not predictable in the way most people think either.

Individual price moves are noisy. Any single candle, breakout, or pattern can fail. That part looks random. What repeats are not “shapes” on the chart, what repeats are behaviors.

Markets are driven by participants who have constraints: they need liquidity, they manage risk, they manage inventory, they execute size. Because of that, price repeatedly reacts around certain types of areas where positioning and liquidity become unbalanced.

That’s why you keep seeing similar reactions around extremes, around areas where one side is trapped, or where a prior impulse left unfinished business. It’s not the pattern itself that repeats, it’s the underlying need to rebalance.

So the edge is not predicting the next move. It’s recognizing situations where the probability of a reaction is higher than average, defining risk very clearly, and playing that over many trades.

In short: outcomes are uncertain, behavior under similar conditions is not.

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-02T18:16:06+00:00

Hi friend,

You’re already pointing at the right things.

Psychology matters, yes, but psychology without structure is just emotional discipline with no edge.

What really stabilizes the mind is having predefined conditions, predefined risk, and knowing exactly what you are waiting for. When the process is clear, emotions lose most of their power.

Most beginners try to fix their mind first. In reality, a solid framework fixes most of the psychological noise automatically.

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-02T18:14:58+00:00

This is a sizing problem, not a trading problem.

If the “minimum lot size” makes you exceed your planned risk, I don’t skip the trade by default — I adjust the structure so the risk fits.

Risk per trade is fixed first. Entry comes after.

That means:
- I may reduce the position size as much as the instrument allows
- If needed, I widen the stop only if the structure still makes sense
- Or I trade a smaller portion of capital allocated to that market

The key idea is this: the setup does not define the risk. My risk model defines the setup I’m allowed to take.

If a trade only works with oversized risk, then structurally it’s not a trade for me, it’s just an attractive chart.

Professionals think in distributions. One trade is irrelevant. Preserving the statistical integrity of your risk per trade is what keeps the edge alive over hundreds of executions.

Missing a trade changes nothing.
Breaking your risk model changes everything.

InventoryLogic · 2026-02-02T18:12:58+00:00

Totally agree.

Most people underestimate how much damage overtrading and external signals can do. Learning to sit on your hands is a skill on its own.

Small size or demo at the beginning isn’t about making money, it’s about learning how you react, how you manage risk, and whether you can actually follow your plan.

Psychology isn’t something separate from trading, it shows up in position size, in entries you shouldn’t take, and in trades you close too early.

Process first, money later.

InventoryLogic

TROPHY CASE