2026-01-22 13:00:34

A downtrend is like climbing stairs, divided into four stages, each of which can deceive people completely.

Stage 1: Weak rebound + failed breakout
The price rises for two days, then pulls back. You think, isn’t this just a shakeout? But the more it consolidates, the lower it goes.

Stage 2: Destructive breakdown
The previous low is broken through, feeling like a true breakdown has occurred. Bearish signals flicker, and you wonder whether to short.

Stage 3: Double top and double bottom continue to decline
The price drops for a while, then bounces back. Each rebound is lower than the last, and the lows keep getting refreshed. At this point, you think, it’s fallen so much, it should be bottoming out, right?

Stage 4: Rapid decline + sharp rebound
A super long tail appears, and the price quickly recovers a lot from the crash, looking like a reversal signal has arrived.

As soon as you start guessing where the bottom is, the market will precisely create the reversal candlestick you expect, and will deceive you repeatedly into entering the market. The cruelest part of this cycle is that it can destroy your mindset and your capital.

How to break it? Don’t predict, just act. Focus on key levels of the price structure—specific locations of highs and lows. Wait for overbought signals + divergence to appear, and enter with a reasonable position size (within your loss tolerance).

It sounds simple, but just one or two mistakes, paying the inevitable small loss, can allow you to catch the moment when the trend shifts from a false rebound to a true reversal.

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ForkThisDAO

· 6h ago

Really, I’ve gone through all four stages, each time feeling like I’ve found the bottom... only to get beaten down again. My mentality has broken several times. The worst loss was during the third stage, tormenting myself repeatedly until I doubted life. Now I just stick to the structural positions, avoid guesswork, but honestly, it’s still easy to get emotional. Who can truly avoid making predictions altogether? The market’s precise “scalping” of retail investors is so realistic, it’s like they’re specifically targeting your stop-loss orders to smash.

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SatoshiLeftOnRead

· 6h ago

Oh my god, I got caught twice again. This article is so damn real.

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CrossChainMessenger

· 6h ago

Damn, I got scammed in again. If I had known earlier, I would have just held on without selling.

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NFTRegretter

· 6h ago

Another "breakthrough" methodology for the market, sounds good in theory but still gets beaten up when executed.

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MetaverseHobo

· 6h ago

I was the most badly deceived in the third stage, really thought the bottom was in, but it kept dropping. --- Predicting the bottom is just giving your money to the market, that’s so true. --- Don't predict, just act. It sounds easy, but when you have no money, everything is easy to say. --- I just want to know if anyone really made money in the fourth stage, or if it’s all just been a trap to shake out traders. --- I’ve heard this theory many times, but as soon as the market moves, I forget it all. Still, the hardest part is execution. --- Structured trading sounds professional, but in reality, it’s just stop-loss after stop-loss, and the mindset really collapses.

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APY追逐者

· 6h ago

It's so damn true, every time I break down in the third stage, always feel like the bottom has been reached.

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