Why Price "Needlessly" Sweeps Right Through Your Stop
Low or high resistance: how easily price travels to its liquidity target, and what that means for your setups.
Before you start: Assumes basic market structure — where highs/lows and trend direction come from.
Part of the My Edge Official framework — refined through thousands of hours of chart study.
Why does price sometimes sweep through your stop "unnecessarily," while other times it glides smoothly to target without a single counter-trend candle? The answer isn't randomness — it's the difference between a Low Resistance and a High Resistance Liquidity Run, and it's one of the most underrated tools for reading "what kind of day is today."
- Core Idea
- Why It Exists
- How Professionals Read It
- Practical Application
Ever notice how sometimes price seems to struggle through every single step, while other times it glides smoothly straight to its target with no fuss? That's not random — it's the difference between two different "characters" of movement.
Picture two roads to the same destination: one is an empty highway (price arrives at its target smoothly and quickly — we call this Low Resistance), the other is full of traffic lights and turns (price fights for every step, with a lot of back-and-forth — this is High Resistance).
This "character" of the move is separate from whether the market is currently trending, pulling back, or standing still (that's something else — Market Environment) — you always need to look at both together. The same trend on the "highway" is a completely different opportunity than the same trend full of "traffic lights."
Advanced explanation⌄
Core Idea
Market environment (see Market Environment) classifies what price is doing — trend, retracement, consolidation. Liquidity run character classifies how it gets there.
Why It Exists
The two axes are independent and must always be read together, since the same market environment behaves very differently depending on which character is active.
How Professionals Read It
Low Resistance Liquidity Run (LRLR)
Price moves toward a liquidity target with minimal opposition. Expectations: continuation setups have the real edge, pullbacks are shallow and fast, "chasing" displacement is more excusable than usual (but confirmation is still mandatory), reversal setups are low-probability.
High Resistance Liquidity Run (HRLR)
Price fights for every handle toward a liquidity target. Expectations: continuation setups are lower quality, reversals and failed continuation attempts are more likely, reduce position size or tighten confirmation requirements.
| LRLR | HRLR | |
|---|---|---|
| Candle bodies | Large | Small |
| Wicks | Small | Long, overlapping |
| Retracement into FVGs/Order Blocks | Little to none against the move | Repeated retracements into the same zones |
| Delivery pace | Clean, persistent displacement | Slow relative to time elapsed, frequent mini-consolidations |
Combining with market environment: Trend + LRLR = strong, tradeable trend. Trend + HRLR = fragile trend, watch for failure. Retracement + LRLR = fast, shallow pullback. Retracement + HRLR = deep, chaotic pullback. Consolidation + LRLR = unusual, often resolves into rapid expansion. Consolidation + HRLR = expected, accumulation before delivery.
Practical Application
💡 Liquidity run character is not assessed once and forgotten — reassess it every trading day and at the weekly level. A regime change mid-week must be explicitly flagged.
How to Use It
In practice:
- At the start of each session, ask yourself: am I looking at an LRLR or an HRLR? Look at candle body and wick size over the last 30-60 minutes as a quick indicator.
- A model that worked great under LRLR conditions (e.g., aggressively "chasing" displacement) should automatically reduce size or tighten confirmation when you detect a shift into HRLR.
- Always combine with Market Environment — never use just one of the two axes. The same "trend" represents a completely different opportunity depending on which character accompanies it.
Don't stop here — see how this fits with the rest of the framework.
Continue to Balanced Price Range (BPR) →Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Low Resistance vs High Resistance Liquidity Run?⌄
A Low Resistance Liquidity Run (LRLR) is price moving toward a target with minimal opposition — large bodies, small wicks, clean displacement; a High Resistance Liquidity Run (HRLR) is price fighting for every handle, with small bodies, long wicks, and repeated retracements.
How do I identify which type of liquidity run is currently active?⌄
At the start of a session, look at candle body and wick size over the last 30-60 minutes as a quick read, then reassess continually — a regime can shift from LRLR to HRLR mid-week and must be explicitly flagged when it does.
How is Liquidity Run character different from Market Environment?⌄
Market Environment classifies what price is doing — trend, retracement, or consolidation; Liquidity Run character classifies how it gets there, and the two are independent axes that must always be read together.
Why does price sometimes sweep through a stop for no apparent reason?⌄
It's rarely random — under High Resistance conditions price fights through levels with repeated retracements and long wicks, while under Low Resistance conditions it glides cleanly with almost no counter-trend movement, so a model that worked in one regime needs tighter confirmation or smaller size in the other.