Not every trade is meant to be a winner. Some trades are meant to ask a question.
This week reminded me of that.
A few setups looked ready to run, and I stepped in with small size to test the waters. The market’s response wasn’t there. Instead of forcing it, I cut them quickly. On paper, those trades were scratches. In practice, they were wins for discipline.
What a Probe Trade Really Is
A probe trade isn’t about profit. It’s about information.
When I talk about “probes,” I mean the small, deliberate entries I take to see if the market will confirm the bias I see. They’re light, low-risk, and designed to answer a question:
“Is the flow with me, or not?”
If it’s with me, the probe turns into a signal that I can press size when structure lines up.
If it’s not, the cost is minimal — I step aside and reset.
Why They Matter
The obvious reason is risk control. A probe that fails costs next to nothing. But the bigger reason is psychological.
Probes protect mental capital. They stop me from bleeding slowly in chop. They keep me from turning stubborn when the market isn’t ready. They act as a buffer between “having a bias” and “betting the farm on it.”
The probe lets me test my read without needing to be right. And that’s a huge difference in trading mindset.
A Week in Reflection
Take this Friday as an example.
Price pushed through a level that often sets off momentum. I took a small long — half of what I’d normally use, because the entry was away from my base. For a few minutes, it looked like it might run. Then it fizzled.
The old me would have held on, hoping it came back. Or worse, doubled down to prove the point. This time, I scratched it at break-even and moved on.
That’s a win. Not because of PnL, but because I executed exactly what a probe is for: I asked the market a question. The answer was no. That was enough.
Letting Probes Fail Quickly
This is the hard part.
A probe isn’t a position you defend. It’s not something you justify or fight for. It should either:
- Work quickly and give you confidence, or
- Fail quickly and be scratched.
Anything in between, the waiting, the hoping defeats the purpose. The moment you start treating a probe like a conviction trade, you’ve lost the edge it was meant to give you.
Carrying the Lesson Forward
What I carry from this week is simple: probes are discipline in action.
They don’t exist to make money. They exist to keep me aligned with the market without bleeding, without tilt, and without ego. They’re a filter that stops me from turning every bias into a big bet.
Over time, the ability to separate probes from production trades is what creates consistency. The probe asks the question. The production trade presses the answer.
Closing Reflection
A probe is just a question to the market. Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes the answer is no. Either way, you’re further ahead than you were before you asked.
And in trading, progress often looks like restraint.
Have a good weekend,
Gav
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