For Business

Price Action

What Is a Stop Hunt

A stop hunt is a fast reach past a level where stop losses sit, followed by a return. This paper shows you a real one drawn from six hours of a September evening, why a row of stops just past a high draws the price to it, the spike on the hourly chart and folded into the daily one, and how a trade closed inside such a spike is marked in your platform's history.

Difficulty
Intermediate
Reading time
5 min
Pages
8
Reviewed by
Saman Rahbar

This paper is locked

Read it in the browser and keep the PDF with Premium, or buy this one paper.

Buy this paper — $2Get Premium

The spike

A stop hunt is a fast reach past a level where stop losses sit, and a return. On 17 September 2025 the euro against the dollar had spent the day under the previous day's high of 1.18785. In the nine o'clock hour, as the Federal Reserve announced its decision, the price shot up to 1.19189 — 40 pips over that high, a pip being the fourth decimal place — and closed the same hour at 1.18345, back under it. The reach past the level lasted minutes. The hourly candle — one candle per hour — keeps it as a wick — the thin line beyond the candle's body.

Why stops draw the price

People who sold near the high put their stop losses a little above it — a stop loss being the order that closes a losing trade — so just past the obvious high sits a row of buy orders waiting at fixed prices. When the price reaches them they go off one after another, and each one is a buy that pushes the price a little further. Once they are spent, nothing is left to push, and the price comes back. The word hunt says the reach went to where the stops were and no further.

This paper is locked

Read next