A trader should not trade what they "believe" should be happening, but rather they should trade what IS happening even if it seems impossible to their finely crafted rules and setups. Even with the best laid plans the markets are filled with uncertainty on EVERY bar, however, one actively attempts, to trade setups, that have the probability of success times the reward being greater than the probability of failure times the risk. But, even then, you have to factor in that setups can, and will fail at times (even the best looking ones), therefore, one must be agile as a monkey to change their thinking if the market indicates that ones reason for taking a position is no longer a valid reason. That is why in some more uncertain contexts if I think that a trade will have probally have two legs (but also think it may not) I will grab the first leg ..exit...and enter again if the second begins. Especially, in the ES with all the mean (pun) reversion.
Logical stop placement for each setup and context is different and should be looked at and determined individually taking into consideration the recent price action. If a flat money stop is used (say for instance 2 points) then that money stop should be examined as to whether or not it is feasible for the recent PA. If not, and one is not willing to use a logical PA stop (because it is too big money wise) then one should simplymskip the trade. Why? Because odds are very high that one will lose.
You can't dissociate from what you "believe" is happening by invoking the "IS". Every tick of PA is incorporated into your experience or "belief system", what you BELIEVE will happen after that tick. You can't trade on just the "IS", you'd be taking every long or short tick up. That price action is fed into your greater belief system forged from experience. You ignore it, or you take the trade based on your belief of forthcoming profit. You get out the same way./ The "IS" is only a small pat of the trade. The smallest part of the trade.
Perhaps you unintentionally misrepresented your thoughts, you always forecast when betting on anything, you could pretend you are trading what you see, but in reality as soon as you go long you are forecasting a future event.
that future event that you hope will happen is based on your experience with similar pattern in the past. You can't get away from your experience, IE CONTEXT and why would you want to try? Without context, just throwing $ at it
First, let me say that is a good lucid post you've made @big mac. However, your reasoning between IS and BELIEVE is missing the defining component known as CONTEXT. It is through context, where IS exists. Everything else, once context has been established, is BELIEF. In a context, x,y, and z are expected to occur. Is that what is happening? If not, the trade is wrong, for that context! Not as a belief, but because the trade is wrong, for that context! I liken this to Russian Dolls... one inside another, inside another, etc. A vein, on a leaf, on a branch, on a tree, in a forest, in a jungle. A tick, as you've referred to in your post, is the smallest Russian Doll, a vein on a leaf. But that vein is pretty meaningless to a trader who's context is a forest. Just as a 200/day MA is pretty meaningless to a trader that uses say 1 minute charts for making many round-turns each day. Each Russian Doll, each category of nature, is its own context. Related to the others, but separate, until price action changes the context. A simple example would be a retrace might be a leaf on a branch. The trade you are in is either the leaf(the retrace), or the branch(the dominant direction). x,y,and z are expected. Until the context changes, in this example, the retrace turns into a full reversal, changing the context to the tree, then and only then, a new set of x,y,and z would be expected. (fwiw, that happened 3 times last week for me... I use 2min, 4min, and 20min charts, leaf, branch, tree) When context is confused, belief, takes over. Trading "I think", is pure chance. x,y,and z are expected due to a context, not chance. In context is what IS happening. Note: my use of x,y,z is merely nomenclature. there is no specific relevance of count. Point being, expectation, not chance. I suppose one could make an argument that context is based on experience and beliefs, but... that does not make context itself a belief. Everything that occurs (or does not occur) within a context, IS expected or not...not a belief.