The Six Stages of a Trade in Market Structure Pro

MSP does not show you everything all the time. It shows you what is useful at the stage you are actually at. A stop loss price is vital when you are about to enter and pure clutter when there is nothing forming.

The journey

A trade moves through six stages. The panel title changes at each one, so the title alone tells you where you are without reading anything else.

Stage 1: Standby

The question you are asking is "should I even be at the screen?" and the answer is usually no.

MSP gives you one sentence explaining why nothing is actionable, and one thing that would change it. Entry, stop and target are deliberately hidden, because there is no plan and showing speculative numbers just invites you to anchor on them.

What to do: go and do something else. Come back when the panel title changes. This is not MSP failing to find you a trade; a market with no opportunity in it is the normal state most of the day.

Stage 2: Evaluate

Something is forming. You will see a direction, the confirmations already met, and the ones still missing.

Exact entry and stop prices are still hidden at this stage, on purpose. Nothing is locked yet, and a number you saw ten minutes ago has a way of becoming the number you insist on.

What to do: bring the chart to the front. Decide now what size you would take if it triggers. Deciding size while a candle is closing is how people end up three times too big.

Stage 3: Execute

The setup has fired. This is the binary moment: take it or skip it. Everything that is not needed for that one decision disappears from the panel.

You get direction, entry, stop with its distance, first target with its distance, the reward to risk ratio, and the grade. That is deliberately all.

What to do: place the trade at your pre-decided size, or skip it. Both are legitimate. Skipping a C grade because it does not fit your plan is a good decision, not a missed opportunity.

Stage 4: Manage

You are in a position. The panel switches to Live Position and now shows the things that only matter once money is at risk: open profit or loss, distance to your stop, distance to your target, and how long you have been in.

If you set MSP to anchor the plan to your actual fill, the numbers follow your real entry price rather than the theoretical one, which matters if you got a different fill to the one shown.

Stage 5: Exit

MSP flags when the reason you entered has stopped being true. It will suggest taking the result, scaling out half, or trailing the stop, depending on what the engine sees.

This is a suggestion. It is your account, and a plan you follow consistently beats a plan you override whenever it feels uncomfortable.

Stage 6: Review

After the position closes, the panel shows what happened and why, tagged with a trade number. Over a few weeks this becomes the most useful part of the tool, because it shows your patterns rather than the market's.