Why it matters
Sweeps are where ‘small slippage’ becomes ‘strategy failure’. They turn clean risk models into uncontrolled exits.
Operational use: this is how the market taxes urgency. When it appears, slow down or size down.
Common trap
Using market orders in thin conditions and thinking you’ll ‘just pay the spread’. In reality you may pay spread plus multiple levels of impact.
Example
You hit out on a news spike. There is almost no depth, so your exit fills across several prices, expanding a planned 1R loss into 2R.
Operational cue: if you can’t point to it on the chart, in the DOM, or in your broker logs, treat it as a story and trade smaller.
Notes
Quick rule
- If you see this repeatedly, you are in a different regime than your model assumes.
- Regime change usually means position size change.
- When in doubt: trade smaller, or don’t trade.