Put me in the camp that believes stop hunting is real. It's not that big a deal to me and I dont stress about it but I do believe its real.
The psychology is the market cratered, you hold on throughout the whole cratering, but then, at the very, very bottom, you get a margin call and have to sell most of your shit. Immediately thereafter the market turns around and goes insanely higher. So you lost almost everything in the market down movement and completely missed the market up movement. That is the psychology LOL.
Camp Redwood was way creepier than Crystal Lake. You should check out that series, it's gnarly, hehe.
Why do trader/investors bail out at the worst places? Because we are all emotional creatures. We let fear and greed get the best of us. But before asking such a question, I would suggest you ask instead "why did I let it run all the way to the bottom"? Was it out of hope that it might reverse? Did you even have a rule like stop loss in place, just in case? Did you also have important areas on the chart like support and resistance marked before the market plunged? In order for this to never happen again, friend, YOU NEED RULES.
The market loves playing off the emotions of noob retail investors for the highest profit potential. Don't think yourself selling at exact bottoms or buying at tops is a mere coincident.
Here's a perfect example for you, man. Here's a trade I put on tonight on MNQ. See the entry and exits with the text? Looks like stop hunting, doesn't it? Guess what...That is a sim trade. The market did not see that trade. That is just how it worked out. See where my stop was? It was right at the bottom. And that is how it is in live trading. It is all about judgement, indicators, time. Blah blah blah.
Why would you assume that you re the only one in the market? Stop loss hunts are for most common prices that are set in the trend by average traders Not you specifically