L4.2 — The No-Chase Rule

Chasing an entry means placing a trade after the optimal entry point has passed — typically entering a strong momentum candle well above your intended level because you are afraid of missing the move. The result is an entry with a worse price, a larger gap to the stop, and a risk-to-reward ratio that no longer justifies the trade. You have accepted all the same risk for less potential reward.

The no-chase rule is a hard stop: if price has moved more than X pips (or X percent of the average true range) beyond your intended entry, the trade does not happen. The specific threshold depends on the instrument and timeframe, but the rule must be written down in advance and applied mechanically. "I will let it go" is the sentence that prevents the chase.

The discipline of the no-chase rule builds over time. Every time you successfully decline a chase entry, you reinforce that there will always be another setup. The traders who destroy accounts are not those who miss setups — they are those who chase setups and compound poor entries into larger and larger losses.